


dissolution

by cuubism



Series: limitations [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: ...eventually, Alec Lightwood Loves Magnus Bane, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Magnus Bane, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Hurt Magnus Bane, Hurt/Comfort, Illusions, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Insecurity, M/M, Magic, Magnus Bane-centric, Major Character Injury, Mild Sexual Content, Monster of the Week, Near Death Experiences, Not Really Character Death, Post-Canon, Protective Alec Lightwood, Psychological Torture, Self-Harm, Trauma, Vulnerability, good communication!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23763667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuubism/pseuds/cuubism
Summary: Over the course of his long life, Magnus has gotten pretty good at handling pain on his own, and this time is no different. He certainly doesn’t needAlec’shelp dealing with it. He’s fine. He’sfine.or: altered realities, traumatic experiences, and learning to let yourself be comforted
Relationships: Magnus Bane & Catarina Loss, Magnus Bane & Ragnor Fell, Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: limitations [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612705
Comments: 218
Kudos: 356
Collections: Malec Hurt/Comfort Anthology





	1. illusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“And I could not believe that I would hurt you so terribly by going.”_

**illusion**

Magnus could have sworn he’d silenced his phone, but here it was, ringing on his nightstand, sharp and loud in the soft silence of his bedroom.

He cursed as he fumbled for it, hoping to quiet the ringing before it awoke—

“Magnus?” Alec’s hand found his thigh in the darkness as Magnus shoved himself upright. His voice was a murmur, long and drawn out with sleepiness. “Is everything okay?”

Magnus watched as his phone, now silenced, lit up again with the same number. The screen was bright enough to cast a diffuse blue glow over his face, his hands, their rumpled sheets, Alec’s expression, growing more distinct by the second as he woke up fully.

Apparently, everything was not okay, at least for whoever was calling. Magnus laid a hand over Alec’s where it still rested on his thigh, and picked up.

It was one of his Warlocks. Well, he really shouldn’t think of them as _his_ Warlocks, not when he was no longer their leader. But they still called him for help, sometimes, instead of reaching out to the _actual_ High Warlock.

Not that Magnus would ever tell this to Lorenzo Rey.

“Magnus,” the person on the other end of the line was saying, sounding panicked. “Magnus, I— it went so wrong, it—”

Magnus recognized the voice as Lucy, a young Warlock that he’d tutored in a few complicated incantations—what felt like decades ago but was probably only six months or so. “Hush, dear,” he told her, voice soft—as much not to startle Alec as to comfort Lucy— “just tell me what happened.”

As she started to explain, Magnus was already sliding out of bed, magicking himself into street clothes. Lucy had tried to summon a memory demon to feed it— Magnus couldn’t quite glean _what_ memories from her scrambled explanation— and it had escaped the pentagram. She had it trapped in a room of her apartment, but couldn’t manage to banish it.

Not a great situation, and one that Magnus wasn’t surprised was beyond the capabilities of a young Warlock to handle.

He sighed. His bed was calling him, but he couldn’t leave her to deal with her mistake alone. “I’ll be right there,” he told Lucy.

“What happened?” Alec asked as Magnus hung up. He was sitting up in bed now, watching fondly as Magnus puttered around the room, gathering a few things that he might need.

“One of my former underlings summoned a demon, and it escaped.”

“It escaped?”

Magnus stilled, looking up at Alec carefully. But whatever expression he was expecting to find on his face— _I’m Head of the Institute and I must lay down the law,_ something like that—he didn’t find. Alec was merely looking at him with mild concern.

“Do you want backup?”

Magnus smiled sadly at him. “I appreciate the offer, but no. She’s just a well-intentioned kid, she doesn’t need trouble with the Clave.”

Alec winced, and immediately backtracked. “That wasn’t what I— I wasn’t going to report her. Just… have your back.”

As much as Magnus liked the sound of that, he didn’t think stepping out of a portal with the Head of the Institute on his arm would do anything to ease Lucy’s panic. “I appreciate that, darling, but I don’t want to put you in the position of having to keep a secret. This is well within my ability to handle, I assure you.”

Alec didn’t look too upset, he just nodded. He surely understood what Magnus wasn’t saying: that the Warlock community still didn’t trust the Clave, and liked to handle their own affairs whenever possible.

“Well, call me if you change your mind.”

Magnus blew him a kiss as he opened a portal. “Try to get some more sleep. Dream of me,” he teased.

Alec reached out to catch the kiss and press it to his heart, grinning. “Always.”

Magnus stepped into Lucy’s apartment.

Which was on fire.

He doused some of the flames as one started to crawl up his leg, cursing, spinning around to try to understand what was going on.

Furniture was shoved in every direction, scorched and toppled. All the lights had been blown out. There _was_ a memory demon, he could sense it, pulsing and vibrating against the wards in one of the bedrooms. But there was also something _else_.

And Magnus was standing smack dab in the middle of a pentagram.

_“Magnus!”_ Lucy shrieked, and Magnus spun to face her. She was cowering behind an overturned couch, cowering from— “I’m sorry, I had no choice!”

Footsteps behind him, an emanation of power— 

“Don’t blame the young one,” a voice said, “she is only grieving. Who wouldn’t want to see their lover again, at any cost?”

Magnus turned around.

He never thought the appearance of a Greater Demon would be cause for relief, but that was what surged through Magnus’s body as his eyes locked with those of the being in front of him. Because for a second, he had thought, _Asmodeus._ But instead it was—

“Belial.” Magnus crossed his arms, affecting a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

The demon paced around the edges of the pentagram. He was hard to look at directly, always shifting like a hall of mirrors, occasionally reflecting the faces of people Magnus knew, or had once known.

Bait. Magnus refused to rise to it.

Belial shrugged with a ripple of his strange body. “Oh, you know. I was in the area, figured I would drop in. Or drop _you_ in, as it were.”

Magnus didn’t understand. He and Belial didn’t have a particularly strong history. Magnus had run into him a few times in his long life, but nothing to justify—

“What did you do to Lucy?” he finally realized to ask.

“Only offered her the grandest prize: a reunion with her dead lover. If she would lure in the High Warlock.” He smirked. “Needless to say, that reunion _won’t_ be happening. Even _I_ can’t bring back the dead, and if I could, well,” he shrugged at Lucy. “I wouldn’t.”

“I only wanted the memory demon, Magnus, I _promise,_ ” Lucy sobbed, “he just— he came, too, and I—”

“You believed what a master of illusions told you,” Magnus said.

Lucy was silent.

Magnus couldn’t really find it in himself to be angry with her. She was so young, and grieving a monumental loss. He couldn’t say for sure that he wouldn’t try something crazy, himself, if he were so desperate.

Something Belial had said was nagging at him. _Lure in the High Warlock._

Wait.

“You’re looking for your son,” Magnus said. “Aren’t you?”

Belial sighed. “Yes, yes, I’m looking for Lorenzo Rey. And instead I got you. Funny how things work out sometimes, isn’t it?”

It was four in the morning, and Magnus was trapped in a pentagram in a burning apartment, all because some demon had snagged the wrong High Warlock. Life could be so incredibly annoying. He just wanted to go back to bed, and now he had to deal with this.

“Yes, funny,” Magnus drawled, reaching for his phone, because _oh, right, Magnus was trapped in a pentagram, which meant Belial was_ outside _the pentagram, which meant Belial was loose in the apartment, which meant a Greater Demon was_ loose in New York—

“None of that,” Belial said before Magnus could dial. He snapped his fingers, and the pentagram flared with purple flames. Magnus’s phone flickered and died as the wiring short-circuited, zapping his fingertips.

“Now, Magnus, I have a game I’d like to play with you, but before we start: do you have any information on my son’s whereabouts?”

Magnus had no love for Lorenzo, but that didn’t mean he was just going to hand him over to his father.

“Nope,” he said. “I don’t think I do.”

“I thought you might be difficult.” Belial stepped up to the edge of the pentagram. Magnus struggled to hold his ground.

“Just tracking him yourself too hard for you?” he taunted.

Belial shrugged. _“This_ is more fun.”

His nonchalant persona vanished in an instant. Before Magnus could even see him move Belial’s magic was around his throat, squeezing—its touch burned Magnus’s skin, clashing with his magic—Magnus pried at the invisible grip, choking as Belial lifted his feet off the floor. He tried to summon his magic but it wouldn’t come, the _pentagram_ —

“Tell. Me. Where. He. _Is_ ,” Belial growled. His eyes were a steady point of fire in his ever-shifting face.

“Fuck—” Magnus grit out, “— _off_.”

Belial snarled and tightened his grip, and Magnus was running out of air, and was he really going to die for Lorenzo fucking Rey?

He reached for his magic, he pushed against the pentagram’s barriers, he pushed, he _pushed_ —

Magic exploded out of every pore of his skin, throwing Belial off, drenching the apartment in energy. Magnus collapsed to the ground, heaving in breaths, and looked around, and saw—

—a gap in the pentagram.

Lucy had crawled forward and scraped open a hole in the drawing, releasing Magnus. Then the burst of energy he’d released had thrown her back against the wall, where she now lay, still.

“No,” Magnus gasped, “no, _Lucy_ —”

“Okay, _that’s enough._ ” Belial was back on his feet, shaking himself together. He looked irritated.

Magnus shoved himself upright, swaying a little before he got his balance back. He called his magic to his hands. It looked like this was going to be an old-fashioned fight, after all.

Even with a… less _human-looking_ one, like Belial, it was easy to forget what Greater Demons were. To assume their power was that of an average Warlock or demon. Magnus should have known better than to forget.

Belial didn’t hurl fireballs at him, like he had been expecting. He didn’t try to grab Magnus or bind his hands, as another Warlock might have done.

He lifted a finger, and reality warped around them.

The walls caved in, the firelight flickered and turned blue, the floor tilted, and Magnus felt himself slide, losing his balance, falling—

He put out his hands to catch himself, and saw that he had bloody claws instead of fingers, magic twirling out of them in fits and spurts—his bones hurt like he was changing shape—when he looked up at Belial again, it was his father who stared back.

_It’s just an illusion, it’s just an illusion, it’s just an illusion_ —

He tried to remember what he knew about illusion magic as the floor kept shifting under him.

_Find a grounding point._

He pictured Alec. Soft and rumpled less than an hour ago, as he caught Magnus’s tossed kiss.

He waited to see if the illusion would manage to twist this, too. It didn’t. Magnus poured all his remaining magic into the memory, solidifying it, focusing on it instead of on the roiling walls.

One of Alec’s arrows appeared in his clawed hand.

Whether he had summoned it from Alec’s quiver, or fabricated it out of magic and the atoms in the air, Magnus didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He solidified his grip, and plunged it into the floorboards.

The illusion shattered. Magnus lost his balance and fell as the floor suddenly straightened, the room returning to normal in a violent instant.

Belial, too, had been thrown off balance, but he surged forward on his hands and knees, teeth bared, ready to defeat Magnus by physical force if that was what it took.

Magnus scrambled backwards, raising his now-normal hands in defense—

The door flew open, slamming into the wall. Magnus barely noticed—Belial was on him, all mirrored eyes and sharp teeth, and Magnus shoved him away with all the ferocity in his bones—

There was a low, spinning _fwoom_ , a _thunk_ , and Belial’s eyes widened in comical surprise at the knife sticking out of the back of his neck.

Before he could say anything at all, he was a pile of dust.

Magnus shoved himself backwards, brushing the dust off violently, shaking. He didn’t think to look up until a pair of boots entered his line of sight, and a runed hand reached down to pick up the blade.

“Seriously, bro,” Jace said, “if you’re going to fight Greater Demons, you could _at least_ invite me.”

It took longer than Magnus liked to admit to gather himself together. Jace offered his hand, and Magnus pulled himself up, straightening his jacket. “An oversight, Blondie, I apologize.”

Jace gripped his arm as he swayed a little. “Whoa. You okay?”

Magnus smiled thinly at him, pulled away, patted him on the shoulder. “Fine. Thanks to your convenient timing. How did you—”

“Map lit all up with the demonic energies radiating out of this place. Knew something was up. Didn’t know it was a Greater Demon, though.” Jace bounced on his feet. He looked like he was still vibrating with energy, still spoiling for a fight, never mind that he’d just banished Belial.

“You came to a fight _alone_?”

“Nah. Just outpaced my backup.” Jace grinned, feral, the expression perfectly fitting in the apocalyptic remnants of the apartment.

Running heels clicked in the hallway outside, and Isabelle burst into the room, whip at the ready. “Jace, you can’t just—”

She stopped as she took in the destruction and stillness—and in the middle of the stillness, Magnus.

_“Magnus!”_ she rushed over to him and pulled him into a hug, tight and fierce despite her small stature. She pulled back and looked him over. “You were caught up in all this? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, dear. Though I’m not looking forward to cleaning up this mess.”

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll handle it.” She turned to Jace, about to say something else, but didn’t get the chance.

Someone moaned behind Magnus, and there was the sound of a body scraping along the floor. Before Magnus could even think of turning around, Jace’s blade was in his hand and he was shoving Magnus out of the way.

Oh, shit. _Lucy._

Magnus guided Jace’s blade down. “She’s not a threat.” He went over to her, crouched down beside her slumped body.

“Lucy? Oh, I’m so sorry, are you alright?” He pressed a pulse of magic into her to restore her strength, was surprised to find she wasn’t seriously injured. Slowly, she sat up and leaned against the wall.

“Is— is he gone?”

“Banished,” Magnus told her, “yes.”

Relief broke over her face, but then she started to cry. “Oh God, _oh God_ , I’ll never get him back now, I’ll never—”

“Hush,” Magnus said, pulling her into a hug, “hush. I know it hurts to acknowledge, but it was all just an illusion. Belial could never help you. He just wanted to take advantage of your grief.”

“I’m so sorry, Magnus, _I’m so sorry_ , I didn’t summon him, I swear to _God_ , I just wanted— I just wanted to feed the memory demon my memories of Marshall, I can’t _take it_ anymore, I can’t bear remembering him and not having him— and then Belial offered—”

“I know,” Magnus said, holding her, “I know.”

When Lucy had calmed down, and retreated to her room to put herself together, Magnus turned to Jace and Izzy. “If it is alright with you,” he began, and it wasn’t really a question, “I would like for the Warlock community to handle this.”

They saw the steel in his eyes, and exchanged a glance. “Magnus, I want to accommodate that,” Izzy said, “but we can’t very well hide the demon popping up on our sensors.”

“Report the demon, take all the credit you want for banishing it,” Magnus said, “just leave Lucy out of it. I will ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

Izzy hesitated, then nodded. She turned to Jace. “Did you call Alec?”

Magnus had been wondering where he was. Shouldn’t he have been alerted as soon as such a massive spike in demonic energy was picked up?

“No, wouldn’t— ah, _shit._ I knew that would come back to bite us in the ass.”

“What?” Magnus looked between the two of them, alarmed. “What would?”

“Normally, as Institute Head, Alec gets notified automatically whenever a strong surge of demonic energy is detected,” Jace explained. “But we, well.” He grimaced. “We sort of… reprogrammed the Institute computers _not_ to do that.”

“You _what?_ ”

“Just for this weekend!” Izzy jumped in. She looked at Magnus imploringly. “It’s his weekend off, and he— he _never_ takes time off, we didn’t want it to get interrupted.”

“Obviously we would have called him if there was like, a world-ending catastrophe,” Jace added.

Magnus sighed. In truth, he couldn’t blame them. He was just as dedicated to getting Alec to rest more, even if his methods were more _seductive_ , and less deceptive.

“He does deserve the time off,” Magnus told them, and watched as Izzy planted her face in her palms. “I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“You’re just saying that because _you_ understand. _He’s_ going to kill us. Especially when he finds out that you got hurt when he wasn’t on call.”

And that… that was probably true.

“Isabelle, it will be fine. _I’m_ fine,” Magnus said, trying to assuage her panic. Izzy looked at him critically, like she wanted to contest that.

“Well, no need to alarm him now,” Magnus continued. “I’m heading home presently; I’ll talk to him. I’ve decided I’m passing off the rest of this wonderfully fun excursion to the man whose _actual_ job it is to deal with it.”

The room where the memory demon was still contained pulsed with a sudden burst of energy, and Jace jumped.

“Including,” Magnus said, “that fellow over there.”

“Is it secure?” Izzy asked.

“Oh, yes. It will be fine until Lorenzo arrives to banish it. No need to worry your pretty little heads.”

Magnus sent off a quick fire message to Lorenzo, informing him of the situation. Then, after a moment of thought, he sent another:

_Heads up. Your father is looking for you._ — _M.B._

Magnus couldn’t do much to protect Lorenzo from Belial—and frankly, wasn’t particularly inspired to try—but he could at least warn him.

“Well,” he said, looking back up at Jace and Izzy, who were watching him with some concern. Magnus wondered what he looked like right now. A mess, no doubt. “It was lovely seeing you both this fine morning—” and it really was morning now, the sun starting to peek in through the windows “—but I must be off. Beauty sleep to catch up on, and all that.”

Magnus opened a portal, and winked at them, and two steps later he was home.

Early dawn light was spilling in through the sheer curtains of his living room, setting the dust motes aglow. Magnus really needed to reactivate his cleaning charms. They’d expired more than a week ago, but he’d been too busy and preoccupied to do anything about it.

Magnus could smell coffee drifting in from the kitchen, which meant Alec was awake. He wasn’t normally an early riser on his days off, which likely meant he hadn’t gone back to sleep after Magnus had left.

Magnus felt momentarily transfixed by the swirling dust motes, the bite of the coffee, the humming he could hear from the kitchen as Alec bustled around. _The blue flames, the tilting floor, Belial’s metaphorical hands on his throat._ He pictured the loft warping around him, golden light going green, soft fabrics sharpening, bricks collapsing in on themselves. His father’s voice, an echoing laugh.

He blinked. Same old loft. Same old Magnus.

He went into the kitchen. Alec was standing at the counter, hair fluffy from sleep, wearing a sweatshirt whose sleeves were too short (one of Magnus’s), pouring a cup of coffee. As Magnus stepped through the doorway, Alec turned to him with a soft smile. “Coffee?”

—and nearly dropped the mug he was holding.

Between one blink and the next Alec had placed the cup down on the counter and crossed the kitchen to be right in front of Magnus. He gripped Magnus’s shoulders, and he was scanning him, increasingly alarmed, and Magnus wanted to fall asleep between his hands.

“What happened? Are you okay? Are you hurt? I thought you said this was a simple problem?”

“Yes,” Magnus began. “It was supposed to be.” He eyed his husband, trying to predict Alec’s reaction to what he was about to tell him. “Alexander… before I explain, I need to make sure you understand two things. One, I am fine. Two, I didn’t lie to you earlier. I believed— I was _told_ — that this was a minor incident.”

If anything, Alec looked more concerned than before. “Okay? _Magnus_ —”

“It wasn’t just a memory demon.” Magnus took a deep breath. “Lucy summoned Belial.”

Alec sucked in a harsh breath, and then his hands were on Magnus again, tighter, pressing down, looking for injuries, confirming that Magnus was whole and alive. He pushed Magnus’s singed jacket off his shoulders, and then he was running down Magnus’s shirt, looking for—Magnus didn’t know what. Blood, or the absence of it. Or maybe just touching. He was leading him over to the couch, sitting him down. Magnus let him, and kept talking.

“By accident, mind you. She really is a well-intentioned young woman, just going through a tough time right now. Belial made her reach out to me. Actually, you know, he wanted Lorenzo, can you believe it was just a ridiculous misunderstanding? Lorenzo owes me _several_ drinks after this…”

He was rambling, and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself. And Alec was listening, but also not, his hands trying to run over every inch of Magnus’s body, and it was grounding, in a way, because Magnus’s bones might no longer be shifting under his skin but that didn’t mean he felt like himself.

“…so, after we banished him,” he continued, and Alec looked up.

“We? You and Lucy?”

“No,” Magnus said, “Jace.”

_“Jace?_ Jace was there?”

“In the nick of time,” Magnus said, and it was really hitting him now, how close he had come to— he didn’t know what fate. “Right in the nick of time. He saved me, Alec.”

Alec stared at him with an indecipherable expression, jaw working.

“He saved me,” Magnus repeated. “It was close.” And that was about as close as he would get to admitting he felt shaken.

Alec was quiet for a long moment. Then his hands were on Magnus’s jaw and he was pulling him in—rough, fingertips dragging on skin—and crashing his lips into Magnus’s.

Magnus gasped at the suddenness of it, and Alec swallowed the sound, pulling him closer, closer, until Magnus had to climb into his lap to achieve that, which he did, straddling Alec’s thighs, grounded by the solidness of him. _This_ couldn’t be an illusion, an illusion would be perfect, and this had an uncomfortable real edge to it: the sharp drag of Alec’s stubble, the too-hard pressure of his fingers, the burn in Magnus’s lungs as he drank, and drank, and drank of Alec’s mouth, and didn’t come up to breathe.

Magnus wanted that edge of pain, needed it. He moved Alec’s hand to his hair and urged him to pull, and Alec did, but not hard enough. He didn’t bite Magnus’s lip, or suck a bruise into his neck, or do anything else Magnus wanted. It was as though Alec couldn’t bear to hurt him any more than he had already been hurt, little though that was.

And then Alec’s hands moved to his neck, ever so gentle, and pain flared down Magnus’s body, and he gasped, and his glamour dropped.

And Alec flinched.

Magnus was moving off him before he even knew what he was doing, shame and hurt rolling through him like he had _never_ —

Alec grabbed his arm and held fast.

Magnus yanked.

Alec held firm.

“Let me _go_ —” Magnus snapped, and then he realized. Alec wasn’t looking at his eyes.

He was looking at his neck.

“Magnus,” he breathed, “what…?”

Oh, yes. The burns. Magnus must have glamoured them automatically, hadn’t even realized he was doing it. And while he was incredibly relieved that Alec wasn’t having the long-awaited adverse reaction to his Warlock mark, he didn’t particularly want _this_ either.

He pulled out of Alec’s grip, and stood. This time Alec let him go. “A minor injury,” he said. “Belial’s magic reacting to mine.”

He could see Alec thinking, watched as understanding clicked through in his brain. “Oh, _Magnus_ …” He seemed at a loss.

Alec reached for him, and Magnus shifted away, uncomfortable, trying to disguise the motion as nothing. Alec dropped his hand.

“They will heal on their own, in time,” Magnus assured him.

“That wasn’t what I— never mind.” Alec looked down at his hands, forlorn, picking at the skin. When he looked back up, his expression was resolute. “So you said you banished Belial. There’s probably still a lot of work to do to clean this up, right?”

“I believe your sister has it covered,” Magnus said.

“My _sister?_ You mean Izzy’s involved in this, too?” Alec’s jaw flexed, he looked pained, and when he spoke again, his voice cracked, previous resolve crumbling into ash. “Am I the only one who didn’t know this was going on?”

“It’s okay,” Magnus said, trying to head off the imminent spiral. “We took care of it. It was under control.”

“No, it wasn’t, Magnus. You yourself admitted that it wasn’t under control. I’m— I’m not blaming you for what happened! But don’t try to pretend like you just waltzed in there, and it was all easy, and nothing bad happened.”

Magnus blinked. “We handled it.” He reached up to rub at his stinging neck, unconsciously, but dropped his hand when he saw Alec’s eyes follow the movement.

Alec looked shattered. Barely anything had even happened to Magnus, and he looked shattered.

“You were out there, almost getting killed, and I was just… here,” Alec said.

_“Killed?_ Alec, please, I can handle—”

“Yeah, Magnus, almost killed. I’m not trying to traumatize you further, but that sure as fuck sounds like what happened.”

_Traumatize?_

“Alexander.” Magnus approached him slowly and rested a hand on his arm, hoping to steady him. “I’m fine. A little banged up, maybe. Nothing that won’t heal.”

It had the opposite effect that he wanted. Alec jerked away from him, shaking his head. He turned away as if the mere sight of Magnus was unraveling his control.

And Magnus… Magnus didn’t know what Alec _wanted_ from him.

“Alexander…”

“Why,” Alec said suddenly, looking at his phone, “the _fuck_ wasn’t I notified?”

“Ah.” Magnus wandered back towards the kitchen, finally picking up that cup of coffee Alec had offered what felt like ages ago. The first sip was incredibly restorative. “That may have also been your siblings’ doing.” 

“Explain.”

“They turned off your Institute notifications. They wanted you to have a nice weekend.”

Alec’s hand clenched around his phone, and he grit his teeth, looking like the weight of several worlds was on his shoulders. “I’m going to kill them. I am _going_ to kill them. They’re on ichor duty for the next seven _years_ , I swear to God.”

“Yes,” Magnus said, “they thought that might be your reaction. Go easy on them?”

“No,” Alec said, and his eyes were on Magnus again, on his burned neck, his filthy clothes, his hands that were holding the coffee mug with the slightest tremor. “I don’t think I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this thing started as a fun weekend project and promptly spiraled into a two-and-a-half month saga that destroyed me several times and then put me back together. anyways, i hope you enjoy it. 
> 
> this fic contains a lot of graphic and emotionally intense content, especially in later chapters. particularly graphic chapters will have advance warnings. if you ever think there's a tag that i've missed, please let me know.
> 
> btw, this takes place in the canon timeline somewhere between Magnus & Alec's wedding and their move to Alicante.
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://cuubism.tumblr.com) if you want!
> 
> next week: powerful magic and tempting doorways


	2. brightness

**brightness**

The gardens at the Met Cloisters normally made for a romantic walk, but today they were blanketed in snow, quiet and still, the flowers underneath dormant or dead. Magnus made a mental note to take Alec here again on a day when it wasn’t twelve degrees outside.

And when they weren’t here to stitch together a rift in space-time.

“Is it hurting your eyes?” Alec asked.

Magnus squinted up at him. Alec gestured to the snow, which was, indeed, catching every mid-afternoon sunbeam and ricocheting it right into Magnus’s pupils.

For a region with limited daylight, it could be so _bright_ in New York in the winter: the gleaming snowbanks, the haze of streetlights in snowfall, the perpetual warm dusk of light pollution. Magnus had trouble with brightness—maybe it was just because of his demon blood but it made him feel _exposed_ , too visible. That, and it hurt his eyes.

It was why all the lights in his apartment were soft lamps, why all his windows had shades, translucent though they were.

Alec handed him a pair of sunglasses before Magnus had the chance to magic them.

“You… brought these for me?” Magnus asked, taking them, dumbfounded.

Alec shrugged. “It’s bright out,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Magnus slid the glasses on, sighing in relief as the polarized lenses blocked out the worst of the painful beams. He followed Alec as he continued walking, treading lightly so the snow wouldn’t crunch too much under his feet.

“Do you sense any demons?”

Magnus didn’t have to reach out with his magic to answer. “Not a one. It seems peaceful. It’s strange.”

Alec grunted in agreement.

The covered walkways to either side would have made easier paths, but Magnus knew how much Alec prioritized a clear line of sight. Magnus, personally, would have liked a roof over his head, but he wouldn’t deprive Alec the use of his bow.

He pictured returning in the summer, when the flowers were in bloom, the rough warm stone of the balustrades set against the green of everything. The fountains would be filled with cool water, and they would walk hand-in-hand in the shade, escaping the summer heat without having to portal anywhere.

“It’s beautiful up here in the summer, you know,” he said softly as their walk continued on, calm and uninterrupted. “I must bring you back for a proper date.”

Alec lips twitched. “A _proper_ date? Does that make _this_ a date of some kind?”  
  
“We’ve hunted demons on dates before, darling. You know how important it is to engage with one’s husband’s interests.”

Alec laughed, startled, then turned to Magnus with a fond glare. “ _Shush_ , Magnus, I’m trying to concentrate!”

Magnus winked at him, tilting his head as if in thought. “I should have thought that was impossible in my presence.”

Alec muttered under his breath, and then he was stalking back across the snow to press a quick hard kiss to Magnus’s lips. “It is. So would you please let me keep the few shreds of concentration I still have left?”

Magnus sighed dramatically. “Very well. But you’re making it up to me later.”

Now it was Alec who winked at him. He wasn’t very _good_ at winking, but it _was_ adorable. “I’m looking forward to it.”

He darted forward to nip at Magnus’s neck, then danced away again, a mischievous gleam in his eye, before Magnus could so much as gasp at the feeling.

And really, this was all Magnus’s fault for being such a terrible role model.

They continued on in silence, Alec with his bow at the ready, Magnus keeping an eye out for magical disturbances. Magnus caught Alec rubbing his hands together, skin tinting blue, and cast a warming charm over him, and Alec didn’t say anything, but turned over his shoulder to throw him a grateful smile.

Through galleries, and back out into gardens, down long halls and short passageways, they found nothing. Not the rift, not any demons.

Alec sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck, as they reached the end of the last gallery. “You think it was a false alarm?”

“On the Institute sensors? Seems unlikely.” Magnus closed his eyes, reached out in every direction with his magic. There was _something_ … a roiling energy, a schism in the air molecules—but it was too diffuse, he couldn’t place it. It didn’t feel like a _rift_ , exactly.

“May I borrow you, darling?”

Alec took his hand, and Magnus tugged on his strength to solidify his probe, digging through the atmosphere. _Show yourself to me_.

 _There_.

A coiling mass resolved in his mind’s eye, not a creature, per se, but a _presence_. It writhed and twisted, changing shape, stretching its tendrils out through the halls, the gardens, the galleries.

Magnus didn’t like it. He _did not_ like it. There were a lot of things Magnus didn’t like, but this had jumped itself right to the top of the list. He didn’t like how it made him _feel_ , like he could be unmade at a glance, like everything he loved was just energy and could be ripped away by the slightest tug of one bored tendril.

But what he liked even less was it being in his city. Near his Warlocks. Near his friends. Near _Alec._

Whether the thing existed in physical space, he didn’t know, but it must have a center. A— a brain, a control room. _Find the nucleus_ —

It saw him. It didn’t have eyes but it _saw_ him.

Magnus yanked himself out of his magic, yanked himself out of Alec’s hand, scrambled back blindly— _get away get away get a_ —

His head cracked against something hard, and he blinked.

He was on the floor fetched up against a pillar, hands outstretched, a glimmering blue shield around him and Alec that he didn’t remember making, and through the skylight above the sky was bright and clear despite Magnus’s visceral feeling that the heavens should be crashing down upon them.

He was reminded, sharply, of Belial’s shifting illusions, and the dread of watching his material reality spin out of control.

 _“_ — _gnus. Magnus!”_

There was a hand on his face. Magnus flinched, but it didn’t retract, and before he could panic he recognized warm calloused fingers, the gentle curve of a wedding band.

Sound and scent and taste and feeling crashed back in at the touch.

“Alec,” Magnus said. _“Alec,”_ he said, touching his lips, his nose, his eyelids, his hair. Illusion? Real? Manifestation of malevolent energy?

He touched him. _Warmth. Wetness. Stubble. Jawline._ Real, real, real, _real_ —

“It’s not—” Magnus started, and coughed, his voice thick. Alec’s hands were gentle along his jaw. Everything about him was vivid now, the lines of his face stark in the gleaming cold day, his eyes bright with concern, so bright, and Magnus had no earthly clue where his sunglasses had gone.

He tried again. “It’s not a rift. It’s— I’ve never seen anything like it. We need to go—”

Magnus wanted nothing more than to flee. He didn’t normally flee from things, but this wasn’t normal, and all Magnus wanted to do was forget it, leave it here, go cower under his coffee table until his heart stopped racing. Screw the date, Magnus was _never_ coming back here. 

But what would happen if they left? Would the presence attack others? Would it grow to encompass all of New York? Would it swallow pieces of reality in its metaphysical jaws?

Magnus felt physically ill at the prospect of staying, but he couldn’t let that happen. He had to learn more, so he could stop it.

“It’s not a rift,” he repeated. “But I think I know where it’s centered.”

He started to get up, and Alec pushed him down. “Will you rest for just _two seconds?_ Please.” His hands hadn’t left Magnus’s body once, and now moved to hook under his jaw as Alec examined his face, looking for… something. “Are you…” he swallowed, harsh, _“okay?_ You— you— were panicking, I couldn’t reach you…”

“It startled me,” Magnus said. “Like I said, I’ve never encountered a malevolent presence like that before. I must admit I don’t like it. But staying here isn’t going to get rid of it.”

“Magnus…”

“I’m _fine._ ”

“You’re still shielding us.”

And that… was true, as it turned out. Magnus concentrated, pushing down his instincts, and slowly managed to lower the shield.

He stood up, bracing himself against the pillar. “Shall we?”

Alec looked chagrined, but nodded.

Every cell in Magnus’s body screamed at him not to go near the fountain.

It looked like a normal fountain, there was nothing odd about it. It was large, as befit such an expansive garden, ornamented with rearing horses that, during the summer, would spit water into the pool below. It was carved of marble, smooth and gleaming, and the pool was solid with ice—rainwater, or perhaps neglect at the end of the summer season. Really, it was quite beautiful.

It took all of Magnus’s strength not to blast the thing into smithereens.

“This?” Alec asked, by his side as they approached. He had wanted to go in front, but Magnus had negotiated him back to standing by his side. Neither of them was particularly equipped to do battle with this thing, but if one had to, it should be Magnus, who at least existed in a similar domain. “It looks… normal.”

“This,” Magnus confirmed. “You can’t feel it, but it’s… dark.” He readied his magic—the absolute last thing he wanted was to probe it again, but they needed more information. “Let me—”

Alec grabbed his arm. “Wait. It’s not safe.”

“I’m not suggesting we fight it ourselves,” Magnus assured him. “This absolutely requires calling in the full force of the Clave and the Spiral Labyrinth. But if they’re to come up with a solution, we need to be able to give them some information.”

Alec hesitated. “If you’re _sure_ it can’t wait.”

Magnus didn’t think it could. The presence could change locations, or attack. They had to learn what they could while they could.

“It can’t. Don’t worry, it will be fine. I know what I’m in for, now.” He felt as though he were standing on the precipice of a wide, dark pool, fully aware that under the calm surface was a coiling sea monster, and about to throw himself in anyway. He raised his hands. “Hold onto me?”

Alec grabbed his hand, looking relieved to do so. Magnus could only hope that Alec’s grip was enough of a grounding point for him to find his way back. 

He closed his eyes.

Everything was darker this close to the fountain, even in his mind. All of night seemed to converge on the still icy surface and dead-eyed horses. Maybe that was why it was so bright out—this malevolent _thing_ had stolen all the darkness.

As he watched, the fountain pulsed with energy, tendrils curling in and out of and around it. The horses stirred and began to move, their legs jerky and uncoordinated. _Not so dead after all_. One of them turned to look at him, but Magnus couldn’t tell if it could really see him or not.

Thunder crackled across the sky, though there were no clouds. Magnus looked up into the brightness, squinting—it burned his eyes worse when augmented by magic. A single drop fell down, down, down out of the blue, out of _nowhere_ , landed on the ice.

The ice shattered.

And then, Magnus knew that it saw him. Had seen him all along. Dark water, more like oil in its consistency, seeped out between the shards of ice, and he knew it was coming for him.

And then he didn’t know anything at all.

Darkness. He was hovering. Far above, there were ripples, and sounds, and painful lights.

Not here. Here was muted. Calm. He felt the darkness seep into him, crawling along his bones, into his organs, pouring in his mouth and out of his eyes. And he welcomed it. He welcomed—

Lips, against his. Magnus gasped, blinked. The darkness retreated. There was no one there, but he could _feel_ someone kissing him, could feel him, _him,_ gentle and desperate, pressing against Magnus’s mouth.

_Please, please. Magnus._

He looked around, and he saw. The thing could see him, could always see him, but Magnus could see now, too. He saw everything.

He saw the doorway. A shimmering, barely-there outline in the darkness. And in the doorway, the creature. A being of the void, of the space between worlds. Curling, hooking its tendrils into Magnus’s universe and the next, drawing together and pushing apart, taking and giving, intermingling and destroying.

 _You cannot be here_ , Magnus thought. The voice in his head was calm, un-panicked. It was not personal. This was simply an aberration, a danger to both universes, and it had to be corrected.

There was no moving in the darkness. You were either there, or you weren’t. Magnus decided to be there, and then he was right before the doorway, looking up at the creature. Moral judgments slid off it like oil on water: it was not, as he had thought, malevolent. It simply _was_ , and he had not had a word for that, and had called it darkness.

Magnus knew he should not touch the creature, and yet he was tempted to. He did not know what that would do to his body. He did not know if he _had_ a body. He reached out and pressed a hand to the warping edge of the doorway instead—the void beyond called him, but he resisted, though he didn’t know why.

Magnus did not have to tell the creature he was closing the doorway. It already knew. With each retracted tendril he could breathe freer, though he had not previously realized he’d had trouble breathing at all.

His magic illuminated the gap between worlds, and he watched as the rift sealed, slowly. _Huh_. Turned out it _was_ a rift, after all.

The last flickers of magic sputtered around the edge of the door, like falling stars in the darkness, and Magnus watched with a strange sense of longing, like he was being dragged in two different directions, torn asunder, part of him called to the void, part of him anchored to the distant brightness far above.

He was a magical being, after all, and where the edges of worlds met was a realm of magical chaos, a place of transition and power, of reformation. His blood sang for its birthright, no matter that seizing it would kill him.

The door closed, and there was nothing but darkness again, and emptiness.

And water rushed into Magnus’s lungs, he couldn’t breathe, he was consumed by fire, all the feeling in the world pouring in to replace the wild magic that had gone, he would be lost in it—

In the emptiness, there was a hand holding onto his.

“—agnus, _please_. _Magnus_ , come on, wake _up_ —”

Water on his face. Water, everywhere. His hair plastered to his head, his clothes drenched and sticking to his skin, water in his _shoes_ , in his _eyes_ , in his _lungs_ —

Magnus coughed once, water spilling over his lips, then again, then hurled himself upright, bent to the side, coughed and coughed as what felt like gallons of dirty water came up from his chest.

He barely had time to take a breath of blessed air before Alec’s arms were around him and he was hauling Magnus into his lap. Alec held him tight, one hand around his head, the other around his chest, fingers gripping desperately in hair and fabric, like he was trying to merge Magnus into his body. That was just fine with Magnus. He was, he was just realizing, _freezing,_ and Alec’s skin was warm, hot even, in comparison to his own.

His next breath stung, he wheezed, and Alec said into his hair, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I might’ve bruised a few of your ribs, I was pounding on your chest, you weren’t _breathing.”_

Magnus petted his shoulder, reassuring him that he wasn’t angry. “What—” he tried to say, voice hoarse, “what happened?”

“It pulled you into the fountain. I— I don’t even know _how_. I didn’t see it. You were just _there,_ and then you _weren’t_ , it pulled you right through the ice without even breaking it, right out of my grasp.” Alec’s hands tightened on Magnus as he spoke, as though he thought the creature would reach out and snatch him again. “I had to break the ice to get you out. That— that fountain is deeper than it looks, I don’t like it.”

Magnus looked over: indeed, the ice was cracked, floating in big shards on a pool of normal-looking water. Not darkness, not oil.

“I felt you, though,” Magnus said. “Your hand, your lips. I suppose after you pulled me out.”

Alec’s voice was thin, cracked like the surface of the pool. “You told me to hold onto you.”

Magnus gripped his shirt in a loose fist, shivering, as Alec pressed a shaking kiss to his forehead. “Why,” Magnus began, trying to control his own shaking, “Alexander, _why_ are you only wearing a t-shirt? It’s freezing out. Where is your coat?”

Alec patted Magnus’s legs, and he looked down. Oh. Magnus was wearing it. Alec must have draped it over him as a sort of blanket, and it had slid down when he sat up.

Alec finally released him, a little, just enough to slide Magnus’s sopping coat off and his own dry one on. 

It was a heavy garment, meant for hunting demons in all sorts of adverse conditions, and warm, but not warm enough. Magnus was still shivering.

“Magnus.” Alec’s voice was tentative, his breath hot on Magnus’s temple. “What did you see?”

What possible words could explain it to Alec? What words could encompass the immensity of universes and the primordial beings that floated through them? Magnus didn’t even know what he had seen.

More importantly, he didn’t know how to articulate how it made him _feel_ , and that seemed like the most critical point. How he was godlike and insignificant at once, how worlds bent for him, but as they did, he knew they only did so because they wanted to.

How could he begin to explain the peace, the longing, the division, how he experienced everything at once, and also nothing?

“I closed the doorway,” he said. “The creature is gone.”

Alec sighed. “That’s a relief, I guess.”

Magnus frowned. “It wasn’t evil.”

“Magnus, it tried to kill you!”

Magnus just shook his head. “It wasn’t evil,” he repeated. “I don’t know what it was, but not that. It just— _was_. And for this creature, in our world, just _being_ was destructive. But not intentionally so.”

He still didn’t know how to wrap his head around it.

“Okay. If you say so. As long as it’s gone now.”

“Yes,” Magnus said. “It’s gone.”

Alec stood up, pulling Magnus to his feet and holding him as he stumbled. “I don’t suppose you can create a portal?”

Magnus didn’t even have to try to call his magic to know that he had spent it all. He shook his head.

Alec wrapped an arm around him and started walking him towards the museum entrance. “Cab ride it is, then. On the Institute’s dime, mind you. We really owe you for this one.”

Magnus tried to smile up at him. “Oh, fear not, darling, I will be sending a bill.” But whatever lightheartedness he tried to project, he didn’t quite feel.

“You’re being quiet,” Alec said, hours later, as they sat on the couch, eating Thai food in silence. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m thinking.” Post-shower, dressed in sweats and with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Magnus was feeling much warmer. But the confusion in his head remained. He wanted to understand what had happened, but he didn’t know how to even begin approaching the problem.

Part of him still felt trapped in that void, longing for magic, for knowledge he never would have normally had access to.

“‘Cuz when you go all distant, it usually means something’s bothering you.”

“I’m _fine._ I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that.”

“O _kay_. Fine.”

Magnus took a violent bite of his pad kra pao to stop himself from spitting out what was on the tip of his tongue, something caused by nerves that he knew he’d regret.

Instead, he stood up, letting the blanket fall behind him.

“Are you… _going_ somewhere?” Alec asked, confused.

“Is that a _problem?”_

“No, just— right _now?”_ Alec’s eyes were wide, he was shifting back and forth like he was debating whether to move forward. The sight irritated Magnus, and he didn’t know why. Everything about Alec was irritating him right now, and he didn’t _want_ that, didn’t want to be angry with Alec.

Alec continued, “Is it safe? After…”

Magnus crossed his arms. “I got rid of the eldritch horror, remember?”

“You also used up all your magic doing so.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Of course you can, I just— where are you even _going?”_

Magnus debated not telling him. But he couldn’t think of a good reason not to. “Cat’s. Don’t wait up.”

He was still in sweats, and should probably put on real clothes. But he didn’t want to give Alec the satisfaction of seeing him retreat. So instead he whirled on his heel, snagged his coat off the rack, and left the loft.

Magnus buried his head in his hands as Cat placed another cup of tea in front of him. They were going on their third hour now, and Magnus was still no closer to understanding anything that had transpired that day. “I just don’t know how to make sense of it.”

Cat shrugged. “Then don’t.”

Magnus looked up, momentarily shocked out of his spiral. _“Don’t?”_

“Just let it be what it is.” She took a sip of her tea. “You know, like the creature? You said it just… _was._ Maybe that’s the takeaway here.”

Magnus sighed. “Thanks, Cat. Very helpful.”

Cat crossed her arms. “Look, Magnus.” Uh-oh. Magnus knew that stance. That was her _you better listen to me, kiddo_ stance. Never mind that Magnus was older than her.

“It’s not that I don’t relish talking you through magical theory into the wee hours of the morning on a work night,” her tone wasn’t unkind, “but you do realize you have a perfectly good husband, right? One who’s probably worried about you right now.”

“Well, he shouldn’t be. I told him I’m fine.”

Cat gave him a withering look. “I may not know Alec as well as you do, but even I know he doesn’t do well with near-death experiences of loved ones.” She held up a hand as Magnus opened his mouth to protest. “It may not have felt like that to _you_ , but that’s how _he_ experienced it. Am I wrong?”

Magnus pursed his lips. “I don’t want him to have to deal with this.”

Cat threw up her hands. “With what? With _you?_ That’s kind of what he signed up for.”

Magnus disagreed, but he didn’t voice this. Cat was right, though. He wasn’t being fair to Alec, abandoning him in the loft after a scare. It was probably time he went home.

“Well,” he said, standing up, “thank you for the tea. I suppose I should be off.”

Cat rested a hand on his arm. “If this is still bothering you tomorrow, go talk to the Elders in the Spiral Labyrinth. Maybe they’ll have some insight. I’m sure they’ll want to hear about this… creature, anyway.”

Magnus had been planning on it. He needed to at least _try_ to get answers.

“But for now,” Cat smiled, and her wry warmth enveloped him, “just try to get some rest.”

When Magnus landed in the living room from her portal, Alec jumped up off the couch.

“Look, I don’t—” he started, sounding like he had a whole speech prepared, “I don’t appreciate you just… _zipping_ off when I— when we haven’t even talked about anything— when I almost _lost_ you.”

“I’m sorry,” Magnus said. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”

Alec blinked, clearly not expecting it to be so easy. “Dare I ask if you’re feeling okay?”

Magnus hummed sadly, moving over to him, running his hands over Alec’s chest. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you, I apologize. I meant it when I said I was thinking. Just… processing everything that happened. Trying to make sense of it.”

“And you feel okay about it?” He held up a hand before Magnus could answer. “You don’t have to say yes just ‘cuz you think it’ll make me feel better. I already feel terrible about the whole thing, so. Can’t get much worse.”

“Oh, my darling.” He brushed Alec’s hair away from his forehead. Alec leaned into the touch with a hurt sound. Magnus was just— was just _hurting_ him, wasn’t he? And he didn’t know how to prevent himself from doing it.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“I feel… okay about it.” Magnus didn’t know if it was the truth. It was a good enough truth for now.

“Alright. Okay. Good.” Alec looked, still, a little uncertain, like he wanted to question more, but didn’t.

“Come, my love, let me apologize to you properly. Let me take care of you.” Magnus pulled him into his arms, started swaying in a musicless dance.

“Magnus, _no_ , you’re—” he cut himself off. Magnus knew what he had been about to say. _You’re the one who almost died._

Magnus only hummed, wrapping his arms around him, holding him tight. Running a hand through his hair, murmuring sweet nothings in his ear.

After a moment, Alec buried his face in Magnus’s shoulder, hugging him back just as tightly.

“You’re okay?” he confirmed, voice only a little wobbly.

Magnus thought of darkness-that-wasn’t, of emptiness. Eyes that did not need light to see. A glimmering doorway of so much potential and so much danger, calling to him. “Yes,” he said, “I’m okay.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the [Met Cloisters](https://www.metmuseum.org/visit/plan-your-visit/met-cloisters) really is a nice spot for a date, when you’re not being attacked by eldritch void beings. 
> 
> as usual, you can find me on [tumblr](https://cuubism.tumblr.com) if you'd like!
> 
> next week: old friends and the perils of time


	3. moonlight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a different kind of "monster" this week  
> not entirely sure what this chapter is, but I hope you enjoy
> 
> cw: off-screen suicide (not a main character), discussion of said suicide. also, panic attacks

**moonlight**

“Darling,” Magnus said into the phone, pouting even though Alec couldn’t see him, “I know you’re very busy, but I believe I was promised—”

“I know I missed dinner, I’m sorry, Magnus,” Alec sounded chagrined, “we got roped into something over in Huntington. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

Magnus frowned. “Huntington? That’s pretty far out for you.”

_“Technically_ it’s in our jurisdiction. But you’re right, demon attacks that far outside of the city are rare.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“Actually, it’s pretty much wrapped up. There wasn’t really anything going on by the time we got out here.” He seemed puzzled. “Probably a false—”

He cut off with a clattering sound.

“Alexander?”

Silence over the line.

Magnus was already opening a portal.

It landed him on a broad, dark lawn, once cultivated but now overgrown and dead in the early February cold. The long grass sloped subtly downhill, past leaning pines and weeping willows, to the shore of the Sound, where a small beach and rickety dock caught the waves.

Not that Magnus could see much of the water, in the dark. Hear it, more like: the intermittent rolling hush, susurration on the sand. The crescent moon illuminated a thin strip of ripples, stretching off to the lights on the distant horizon.

He spun around, and there was the house.

It was enormous, a stately Georgian mansion of a previous age. Red brick, white columns, climbing ivy, statues, balconies, porches—every possible detail screamed _I’m rich and I’ll prove it,_ though the effect was rather diminished by the place’s state of disrepair. Magnus’s own tastes were excessive and lavish, but this sort of thing was a little much even for him.

The thought was pushed from his mind by a sudden flare of déjà vu. He had been here _before_ —a century ago, perhaps, when the liveliness of the mid-twenties had the lawn bursting with dancers, the balconies overflowing with champagne, the lights bright and warm in all of the windows.

There were no lights now. Didn’t look like there had been any for a very long time. It was abandoned, and Magnus’s heart panged with regret as he imagined the histories that had died with it.

He shook himself. Now was not the time to get sucked into memories. Where on God’s green ridiculously excessive lawn was Alec?

As Magnus walked, the grass crunched under his boots, wet and frosted over. It felt loud in the quiet space, an intrusion. The steps to the veranda creaked as he climbed them, and he stepped _through_ the door—once all glass, now an empty frame.

The foyer was as regal as he remembered it, even in its decay: dark wood paneling and cracked marble floors, broken light fixtures dangling out of the walls. Lighting his way with a curl of magic, Magnus continued into the main ballroom, a grand, red-wallpapered space that must have once held a stunning chandelier. Actually— it had, he remembered it now, how its crystals had cast tiny rainbows into his champagne glass as he’d danced the night away below its flickering lights.

It was all gone now, in its place nothing but darkness and cobwebs.

And certainly no Shadowhunters. Where _were_ they? Alec’s patrol was supposed to be here, yet the mansion seemed still and quiet, undisturbed for decades.

Wait. That— that wasn’t quite true. There, in the dust—a disturbance. A footprint?

He cast out with his magic, and could immediately feel the faint traces of angelic runes and weapons. They had been here.

The concern growing steadily in his stomach sharpened abruptly.

He tried calling Alec again—

—and could swear that his heart stopped when he heard a phone ring, glaring and loud, from the other side of the house.

“Alexander?” he called, his voice echoey and discordant in the soft silence. He moved toward the sound, walking and then running, casting dust aside in great swathes as he slipped across the floors.

Every one of his movements felt loud enough to wake the dead, each step an echoing bang that ricocheted through the mummified house. Magnus had never felt so ungainly and out of place, so inelegant in his own skin.

He skidded into a parlor on the far side of the mansion—the only room that wasn’t dark, for a phone—Alec’s phone—was lighting it up in planes of blue as it rang, and rang, and rang with no one to answer it.

Magnus walked forward slowly and picked it up. 

Where _was_ Alec? Was he hurt? Kidnapped? Jettisoned into space?

_Trapped by a Greater Demon? Drawn through a portal into the void between worlds?_

_Focus!_

He crouched along the floorboards, casting out wispy strands of magic with one hand, looking for demonic traces or evidence of a trap. With his other hand, he pulled out his phone, and dialed the number Alec had given him that apparently connected to the Institute’s Ops Center.

“Hello?” he tried when the line connected.

“Is that… _Magnus?_ ” a vaguely familiar voice asked.

As he stood back up, having found nothing, Magnus frowned. “Underhill?”

“That’s me,” Underhill agreed.

Magnus’s frown deepened. He tried not to let it bleed through in his voice—after all, he had no valid reason to resent the man.

“Do you have eyes— well, metaphorically speaking— on the patrol you have out on Long Island?”

“Yeah, you wondering if Alec’s okay? I’ve got their tracking beacons right here.”

“You do,” Magnus said.

“Yeah, why?”

“Because _I’m_ out on Long Island, and nobody is here.”

There was a long pause over the line as Underhill absorbed this. “That’s… not good,” he said, with admirable composure.

“No,” Magnus said, stress hardening his voice, “no, it’s not.”

“They’re not— they’re not _dead_ ,” Underhill said, which made Magnus feel better, but not by much. “Their beacons would have indicated it. They’ve _got_ to be there.”

“Is there any way to remove the beacons?”

“The tracking is tied to their runes, so… short of cutting the runes out of their skin, not really.”

Magnus flinched at the image.

“And that would deactivate the tracking anyway,” Underhill continued.

“Then do you have any explanation for why I’m here in an empty house? Because I would _really_ like to know where my husband—”

The house breathed.

It wasn’t real _breath,_ but that was the only way Magnus could think to describe it—the whole structure shifted at once, moving out and then in, a kind of settling. Magnus’s vision flickered.

Walls, changing color with every other blink. Mingling figures that appeared then disappeared. The bright lights and bountiful colors of another age, slipping into and out of existence.

As he watched, the crumbling and dusty veneer of the modern-day mansion was scraped away like so much cheap varnish and an older, grander, more lived-in world replaced it, flicker by more rapid flicker until the past entirely replaced the present like a film reel coming up to speed.

Underhill’s tinny voice rang through the line. “Magnus? Magnus, you still there?”

Magnus was most certainly not still there. He was _then._

July, 1924. The height of the Roaring Twenties. The beginning of Prohibition—not that that had stopped anyone from drinking, least of all Magnus. In fact, he was fairly certain he’d supplied the alcohol for this particular event. It was one of the extravagant summer parties that the age was known for, this one hosted by a man named Perry—a Mundane, a friend and occasional client of Magnus’s. He was magnanimous and knew how to throw a good party—two qualities that Magnus heavily prized in other people. 

Magnus dropped his phone, and the party swept him up into its waiting arms.

It was exactly as he remembered it. Hot enough to make him sweat—in more ways than one—and absolutely dripping in alcohol. Magnus hummed and snagged a glass off a passing tray, taking a sip.

Ah, that was good. Definitely his booze. One of the perks of having magic was that Magnus was always able to get the good foreign stuff that nobody else could sneak through customs. He made a lot of money portalling expensive liquor into the States, back then.

_Wait. Wasn’t… he supposed to be doing something?_

He took another sip of his drink. Ah, well. Maybe it would come to him eventually.

The colors of the parlor were rich enough to be blinding, all the furniture upholstered in vibrant jewel tones, the women lounging about in their sequined dresses, the metallic accents and lights warm and gilded. Magnus leaned against the wall, content, for the moment, to merely soak in the intoxicating energy of the space.

Someone tapped on his upper arm.

“Magnus!” Perry stood before him: tall, conservatively dressed, his hair combed and gelled as was the style. He was an attractive man, if not really Magnus’s type. Not that Magnus was Perry’s type, either, if the way he was constantly hanging on the arm of that one dancer— what was her name? Edna, perhaps?— was any indication. “I’m so glad you could make it!”

Magnus winked at him. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, darling.”

Perry looked him up and down critically. “Really pushing the style these days, I see. You always were forward thinking. I like it! Please, let me know if you need anything. This evening wouldn’t be possible without you.”

And before Magnus could even try to respond, Perry was off to play the gracious host with another guest.

Magnus watched him go, amused but not surprised… and was startled when Perry suddenly stopped and backtracked until he was standing before Magnus again, a strange look in his eyes.

“Magnus, is that…” he made an aborted sort of gesture towards Magnus’s left hand. “I— suppose I owe you congratulations. I would have thought you might have told me… but you always were secretive about your personal life. Ah, well. Congratulations, my friend!”

Magnus blinked at him, flummoxed. “Excuse me?”

“Your marriage! When was the wedding? Can’t have been long, I’m sure I would have noticed the ring the last time I saw you.”

Magnus’s… _marriage_. He felt for his left hand, rolled the smooth ring around on his finger. He was married, he was— he couldn’t breathe, his shirt felt tight around his chest, the air was growing hot, he couldn’t _breathe_ — and he was forgetting something important, something critical.

“My— my marriage,” he squeaked out.

The glass shattered in his hand, slicing open his palm.

_Alexander._

Sound screeched to a halt. Glasses stopped clinking, laughter cut off halfway through, the swing music drifting in from somewhere fiddled out to discordant whines.

“Oh, _geez_ , I’m sorry,” Perry said, rushing to grab a napkin from a waiter and pressing it to Magnus’s bleeding palm. He laughed nervously. “Touchy subject, I guess. Shouldn’t have brought it up. I’ll drop it, I promise.”

Magnus stared at the blood seeping through the makeshift bandage on his hand. _Alexander, he had forgotten Alexander. How could he have forgotten so easily, how could he_ —

“Not your fault, darling,” Magnus said absently.

Perry patted him on the arm. “You’re okay, right? Just, uh… let me know if you need anything. I’ll be around. Take care of that hand.” And then he was gone again. He had always been faint around blood, Magnus reflected.

Where was Alexander? Where was _Magnus?_

“Alexander?” he said aloud. No response. A few people cast him strange looks. Louder: “Alexander?”

He moved through the house, absently healing his hand as he went. Through halls, down side passages, until he arrived in the main ballroom, its chandelier intact again and casting curving rainbows over all of the guests.

Including, inexplicably, Alec.

He was there, he was _there,_ in the corner of the room. Still in patrol gear, looking relaxed, if a little out of it, his eyes glassy. He was holding a drink, and talking to—

Oh. He was talking to _Magnus._

The Magnus of _this_ time, the one who belonged here. One wearing a blue suit, and far less makeup on his face. One who wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and who probably thought he was just trying to seduce a cute boy, not prematurely meeting the love of his life.

Magnus watched for a long moment, caught by the image. He watched as his younger self leaned into Alec’s space, trailing a light finger along his arm. Subtle enough to be waved away to passersby, crystal clear to the two men engaged in the flirtation. Magnus blinked as Alec leaned in, then, seeming to think better of it, stepped back and out of young Magnus’s personal space, a frown creasing his otherwise placid expression. It seemed he was lucid enough to recognize that something was not quite right, but not enough to put his finger on _what._

Young Magnus sighed, disappointed, and said something presumably faux-brokenhearted to Alec. Magnus couldn’t make out the words from where he was standing. The expression on Alec’s face as he looked at his younger self was so _tender_ that it broke Magnus’s heart, never mind that he’d had that very look directed at himself more times than he could count.

Irrational jealousy tugged at his chest, and before he could stop himself he was stalking over to yank his husband back from this alternate version of himself. 1920s Magnus didn’t _know_ Alec, didn’t know what they’d _been through_ , didn’t have their _history_. He didn’t _deserve_ Alec.

Whether present day Magnus deserved Alec was an open question, but he certainly had a better shot than chaotic bootlegger party boy Magnus did, Magnus was sure of it. He’d prove it to both of them. Maybe he’d kiss Alec senseless in front of his other self, that would teach young Magnus a lesson.

A hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him to a stop.

“I was wondering where you’d got to. Up to your usual mischief?”

Magnus spun around and stared. His brain stuttered to a halt. His heart, too, quite painfully. All thoughts of lessons and jealousy and kissing Alec vanished instantly from his mind.

Because standing before him was Ragnor Fell.

Magnus blinked furiously, certain it was a hallucination, and would vanish. When that didn’t happen, he resumed staring, his throat closing up. Ragnor. _Ragnor._

Ragnor squinted at him. “Are you quite alright? You’re looking pale.”

“Ragnor,” Magnus croaked.

And then he was throwing himself around him, pulling him to his chest. Ragnor crashed into him with an _oomph_ , arms flailing a bit as Magnus squeezed him too hard, never wanting to let go.

Ragnor patted his back awkwardly. “Magnus, dear,” his voice was strained, “I need to breathe.”

Magnus released him, but kept one hand on Ragnor’s arm, lest he disappear. He was unsurprised to find that his cheeks were wet with tears, but Ragnor looked alarmed when he took in Magnus’s face again.

“What’s the matter?” he said, all dry humor and warmth, “someone break your heart?”

“Only you,” Magnus told him.

Ragnor scanned his face. If he was looking for a joke, he wouldn’t find it. “I saw you barely an hour ago.”

Magnus just watched him, and slowly Ragnor’s expression shifted, a grim realization growing on his features.

“You’re not the Magnus I know,” he said, “are you?”

Magnus shook his head, his grip still tight in the sleeve of Ragnor’s tweed jacket.

Ragnor sighed. “In hindsight, the clothes should have given you away instantly, but you see, I’ve had a few of your drinks, and they’re rather strong.”

“Always,” Magnus quipped, voice weak.

“Come.” Ragnor led him over to the side of the room, where there was a couch pushed up near the wall. “Sit down before you fall down.”

They sat. Magnus turned toward Ragnor, desperate to keep him within his sight, and Ragnor took his hand.

“So,” Ragnor began, “are you… from another time? Or another reality entirely?”

“Your reality.” Magnus cleared his throat, wiping his eyes. “Early twenty-first century.”

“I thought as much. In which case,” his words were measured, “I am assuming your reaction upon seeing me does not bode well for my future.”

Pain blossomed in Magnus’s heart, because he was right. But… maybe that could change. Maybe this was an opportunity. Could he warn Ragnor about the moments that would lead to his death? Save his life?

The words were almost past his lips when he stopped, thought harder about the events that had followed that day. The war with Valentine. Defeating Lilith and Jonathan. _Alec._

Which threads of the future would saving Ragnor’s life unravel?

Everything could turn out fine, of course. He could warn Ragnor, and return to a present where everything was largely the same, where he had his oldest friend back. Or he could return to a present where the Clave was controlled by Valentine. Or one where Idris was flattened ash. Or one where Alec had never walked down that aisle to meet him.

Magnus had always thought he would do anything for Ragnor. But the chances here were just too great.

His expression shuttered. “I— I can’t talk to you about that.”

“No, and I wouldn’t want you to,” Ragnor agreed easily. “I hardly need the knowledge of my own demise hanging constantly over my head.”

Magnus blinked at him. “You don’t want me to try and change it?”

“Heavens, no. I know you, Magnus. I’m sure you did everything in your power to try to save me—and since you were clearly unsuccessful, I shudder to think about what might change in your present if you save me now.”

Tears welled up again in Magnus’s eyes. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

“Please, don’t be. I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.” When Magnus started to shake his head, Ragnor laid a hand on his arm, and added, “And even if it was, I forgive you.”

His eyes were warm, his voice steady. It took a lot to shake Ragnor, and apparently even his own death wasn’t enough to do it.

Magnus hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing that steadiness until he got it back. Hadn’t realized how much he’d been selfishly craving Ragnor’s easy forgiveness.

Before he could say anything to that effect, before he could do anything at all, Ragnor had lifted Magnus’s left hand, a twinkle in his eye. “Now. Want to tell me about this?”

They both watched his wedding ring shine in the light of the chandelier.

The desire to gush to his best friend about his love, his marriage, his new life was like a physical ache. He had missed Ragnor at his wedding. He had _missed him._

But: “I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”

Ragnor waved a hand. “I won’t remember tomorrow morning anyway.”

Magnus smiled faintly. “Are my drinks really _that_ strong?”

“You know they are, but I was actually referring to the fact that we’re in a time loop.”

Everything around Magnus screeched to a halt—the people, the music, the dancing lights. He felt— lucid, suddenly, though he hadn’t felt like he was dreaming before. “A— a time loop?”

Ragnor brushed it aside. “It can wait. I want to hear about this incredible person who managed to lock down Magnus Bane.”

Magnus was still stuck on the _time loop_. If that were true, then saving Ragnor would be impossible anyway, wouldn’t it? Unless— unless he could somehow pull Ragnor _out_ of the loop and back to the present with him? Would that affect the normal time stream?

Ragnor sighed. “Shouldn’t have brought it up. I see I’ve lost you now.”

Magnus turned his attention back to him. “What do you know about this time loop?”

“Humor me, won’t you? I promise I’ll tell you all about it later—what little I know. Right now, I want to spend time with my friend. Don’t you?”

Magnus stared into his gentle eyes. He did. _Oh_ , he did. Swing music faded back in somewhere in the background. The edges of Magnus’s vision blurred. Time loop? He didn’t care about that. How could he care about that when he had his dearest Ragnor in front of him?

“Yes,” he said softly.

Ragnor settled into the couch. “So, tell me about this mysterious spouse. Do they treat you right? If not, I’ll have to hex them into next week.”

Magnus laughed, a fond smile spreading across his face. “No need. He is… very gentle with me. Gentler than I deserve.”

Ragnor cast him a look that said, _none of that._ “Hmm. ‘He.’ Does this ‘he’ have a name? A face?” He straightened as a realization came to him. “That dark-haired young man you were beelining for earlier?”

Magnus blinked. “You saw that?”

“I did, but I didn’t realize what he was to you. I assumed he was just another catch you were after.”

“Well, he is that,” Magnus said, smiling, “quite the catch.”

“And one you have reeled in quite thoroughly, haven’t you?”

_“Ragnor!”_

Ragnor raised innocent hands. “I mean it merely as a form of congratulations. You’ve done well for yourself, my friend.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“Anyone who can make you smile like that deserves at least the benefit of my doubt.”

Magnus ducked his head, inordinately pleased. The familiar banter was sending warmth coursing through him, drawing him into his memories, making him feel comforted and safe.

“I should very much like to meet him,” Ragnor continued.

Magnus pictured Alec and Ragnor together, building off each other’s pointed wit, turning that wit on Magnus. He shivered. “I shudder at the thought. Something tells me the two of you would get on like me and whiskey.”

“That well? I like him already.”

“I hardly need to be double-teamed by my husband and my best friend.”

Ragnor’s eyes widened, all innocence. “It wounds me that you think I would do such a thing.” Then he grinned, sharp. “Obviously, Cat and Raphael would also be there so we could all gang up on you at once.”

Magnus pressed a hand to his chest in mock betrayal. “Gah! You’re as insufferable as always.” God, Magnus had missed him.

“I should hope so.”

He had missed him dearly, missed his sharp tongue, his intelligent eyes. Ragnor gazed at him, warm, like something out of a dream, and suddenly just talking to him wasn’t enough—Magnus lunged forward to seize him in another hug, breathing him in. He smelled like libraries and whiskey (that latter one was Magnus’s fault) and Magnus couldn’t get enough.

The house rumbled. Glasses shook on their trays. For a brief flicker, everything was gone, replaced by dust and empty rooms, and then reality snapped back into place.

Ragnor pulled back. “Our time is running short.” He looked around, and Magnus followed his gaze: Alec was gone, as was young Magnus, and the room was full of strangers. Ragnor sighed. “Meeting your lovely husband will have to wait.”

But there _was_ no waiting, this was— this was all the time he _had_ —

Magnus would go find him. He would drag Alec over here if he had to.

A curdling scream echoed across the house.

“I believe that’s your cue.”

Magnus stared at him incredulously. “My _cue?_ You knew this was coming?” Anger started to trickle up his throat, anger he didn’t want to be feeling at Ragnor, not _now_. “You could have warned me, I could have _stopped_ whatever—”

“You couldn’t have stopped it.” Ragnor smiled wanly. “Time loop, remember? All this has already happened. All you can do— what you _have_ to do— is break it. Help Perry through it.”

_“Perry?”_

“It’s his house. His party. His never-ending nightmare.”

Magnus’s head was swimming. He stared at Ragnor in despair. “I don’t understand.”

Ragnor patted his arm. “I know. It’s okay. Just do what you always do.”

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Help him.”

Everything had stilled around them. Everyone seemed to be waiting. “This is the end,” Magnus said, “isn’t it?”

“Let us hope so.” Ragnor pulled Magnus to his feet. “Go on, my dear.”

Magnus gripped his shoulders, knuckles whitening as desperation surged through him. This was the end. The _end._ “Ragnor, _wait_ , I—” he said the first stupid, impossible thing that came to his mind, “come with me. Come back with me. Stay, I— _I need you._ ” His throat closed up, he was shaking, he couldn’t lose him _again._ “I love you,” he pleaded weakly. “Let me save you.”

Ragnor’s eyes were so kind as he pried Magnus’s hands off, cupped his face in one rough palm. “You can’t. I know how much you want to. But there’s someone you _can_ still save.”

As if to make his point, the house shook again.

Ragnor released him with a wink. “Besides. You have a very sexy husband who I know you want to make it back to. Don’t keep him waiting long.”

Magnus just stared with tear-brimmed eyes as Ragnor faded back into the crowd, almost as if he had never been there at all.

It was only when he was gone that Magnus realized he had never told him Alec’s name.

He wandered through the house in a daze, looking for signs of Perry and, tangentially, Alec. The other party guests parted way for him, looking at him oddly, like he was an intruder. For a long time after Ragnor’s death, Magnus had felt like an intruder in his own life, blundering around in the dark.

It seemed only fitting to relive it.

He thought he spotted a flash of Jace’s golden hair as the boy chatted up some group in a distant corner, but the crowd closed up before he could get a good look. Here and there he caught glimpses of runed arms, though not the ones he was looking for.

Magnus kept getting turned around in the giant house, and was about to start crying out of frustration when he was ripped from his thoughts by the echoing _bang!_ of a gunshot.

He whirled towards the sound even as partygoers screamed and ran away, but he couldn’t quite place it in the maze-like house. And then, before he could try, his magic was suddenly tugging at him, telling him to go the opposite direction—up, up, to the roof.

So Magnus did.

When he stepped out, carefully, onto the slanted shingles, he knew instantly why his magic had called him here. A lean figure was hunched on the edge of the roof, looking out over the dark, still water.

Magnus sat down beside him. “A fall from this height won’t kill you, if that’s what you were going for.”

Perry avoided his gaze, picking at his cuticles. The movement reminded Magnus sharply of Alec, even if the two men were otherwise very different. “She was cheating on me. I caught her in bed with another man.” His head jerked up, eyes wet. “Christ, Magnus, what did I _do?_ ”

The gunshot echoed in Magnus’s mind, and alarm rushed through him. “Tell me you didn’t—”

“I didn’t hurt her!” Perry’s voice was quiet, but vehement—he looked horrified by the very thought. “I would _never_ hurt her.”

Magnus knew the sting of a lover’s betrayal better than most. His heart twinged in sympathy, and he reached out to rest a hand on Perry’s arm—

—and his hand fell right _through_ Perry’s arm.

Suddenly, Magnus understood.

“Oh, Perry,” he sighed.

“I don’t know why I—” Perry’s voice cracked. “I’ve never been impulsive, I just— I just grabbed the gun and I— and she followed me— and I couldn’t bear the— the lack of _remorse_ on her face, I didn’t want to hear the _begging_ —”

“You love her,” Magnus said, “and it hurts. It cleaves your heart in two. I know.”

“Cleaves in two,” Perry repeated. He glanced down at Magnus’s hand, his _ringed_ hand. “Yours hasn’t—?”

“No. I’m lucky, he is very loyal.”

Perry blinked in surprise when he said ‘he,’ but didn’t say anything about it. “Good. That’s good.”

“But I have been hurt before,” Magnus continued. “Many times. I know how it feels.”

“I was— I was trying so hard. Wasn’t I enough for her?” Perry asked the air around them.

“No, you weren’t,” Magnus said, blunt. Perry flinched. “But that’s not your fault.”

“I don’t know how I could have loved her more,” Perry’s voice was distant now, he was looking out over the Sound, “I was— I was giving her everything. Every ounce of love in my body.” He laughed wetly. “One reads these dime store romance novels, they seem so cheesy when you’re not in love: _‘I die without the touch of your skin, my lungs yearn to breathe your air’_ and all that. But that— that was us.”

“The problem was not how much you were loving her,” Magnus said. He paused, knowing what came next was a necessary but fatal blow. “The problem was she didn’t love you back. Not in the same way.”

Something broke in Perry when he said that. He collapsed in on himself, choking on quiet sobs. Magnus would have patted his back, if it were possible.

They sat like that for a long time: Perry hunched over, giving in to all the strain in his heart; Magnus looking out over the ocean, and waiting for him. When Perry finally straightened up, there was a new firmness to his spine.

“I think I needed to hear that,” he said. He blinked and looked at Magnus with new clarity. His hand drifted to his temple. “My _God,_ what have I—”

“Shh. Don’t think about it. What’s done is done.”

“I wasn’t thinking, I just wanted her to _understand_ — to know what it would feel like without me—”

“To hurt her.”

Perry cringed. “In a way. I’m _so sorry_ —”

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to Edna.”

Perry’s eyes widened. “What?”

Magnus waved a hand. “I don’t mean literally. I’m not trying to give her another heart attack. Just say it.”

When Perry didn’t say anything, Magnus sighed. “ _‘I’m sorry, Edna,’_ ” he modelled. “Go on. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m sorry, Edna,” Perry whispered. Then, louder: “I’m sorry, Edna, I’m sorry, _I’m so sorry_.”

“Good. Now apologize to yourself.”

Perry looked startled. “What? Why?”

“The person your actions have really hurt is _you._ You may have deprived Edna of her peace of mind, but you’ve deprived yourself of the entire rest of your _life._ Apologize.”

Perry looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, sounding a little broken.

“Now forgive yourself.”

Perry twisted his fingers together. “I— I forgive myself.”

“Did that help?”

Perry nodded. “I think so.” He held up a hand in the moonlight. It was paler than before. “I think I’m disappearing.” He turned a slightly panicked gaze on Magnus. “What do I do?”

“Just let it happen,” Magnus said.

“But I don’t— I’m scared— I don’t know what— or how—” 

“Tell me again,” Magnus interrupted, “how you loved Edna.”

“Desperately,” Perry breathed, “passionately. With all I had.”

“I want you to take that love,” he reached out and pointed a fingertip to Perry’s heart, “and turn it _here._ ”

Perry placed his own hand on his chest, brow furrowed.

“It’s what you needed in life, and I can only imagine you’ll need it wherever you’re going next.”

Perry looked frightened, suddenly. “You don’t think it’s a bad place, do you?”

“No one can know for sure, but no. I don’t.”

Perry smiled at him, relieved. He was fading now, growing more translucent. Magnus could see the swaying willows through him.

“Thank you, Magnus. You’re wise beyond your years.”

Magnus huffed out a laugh. “Darling, you have no idea.”

“I would shake your hand, but, well…” Perry looked down at his see-through hands with a small laugh.

“I promise not to take offense.”

They looked out at the water, at the cold, bright moon. Magnus tried not to think too hard about how this was the last image Perry would see of earth, of his mortal life.

“Oh! Magnus.”

Magnus turned to him. “Yes?”

Perry was nearly gone, but Magnus could still make out his sad smile. He pointed at Magnus’s chest. “Turn your love _here_ ,” he said.

Magnus stared at him, heart fluttering in the chasm opening under his ribs. “Yes,” he said, looking down at his chest to make sure it wasn’t actually caving in, “yes, dear friend. I will try.”

When he looked back up, Perry was gone. 

Magnus stumbled back inside, still shivering from the cold air. Surely he had broken the time loop by helping Perry find rest? Surely he could leave now?

Where was Alec?

The great hall was a wasteland—all the guests had fled except one. A young woman in a red dress was sobbing, crumpled on the floor beside a sprawled out, lanky body.

Magnus walked over to her, trying to avoid looking at Perry’s body, or the pool of blood trickling across the floorboards. It stuck to his shoes as he got closer. “Edna?”

She flinched, a full-body thing. “Get away from me!”

Magnus took hold of her arm, gentle but firm, and pulled her away. “Come away from there. There’s nothing you can do.”

“Get _off!”_ She struggled, slapping at his face, smearing blood across his skin—but Magnus was stronger. He pulled her twenty or so feet away from Perry, then released her.

He half-expected her to run back, but instead she melted onto the floor. She buried her face in her hands, wailing. “Oh God, oh my _God,_ what have I _done_ —”

Magnus crouched down before her. The events of the night were fraying the edges of his mind, making him unsteady, but he tried to maintain his composure. “Edna, listen to me carefully—”

She snarled at him. “I don’t _know_ you!”

“But you _will_ listen to me.” He put steel in his voice, and she fell silent. Magnus enunciated carefully. “This was not your fault.”

She flinched. “I brought him to this,” she insisted.

“I’m not saying what you did wasn’t cruel, because it was,” Magnus said. “But you are not responsible for his actions. Only he is.” Edna watched him carefully, trembling. “People will try to tell you that you did this, and you need to know that it isn’t true. Otherwise the guilt will eat you alive. You hurt him, yes. But you didn’t hold the gun to his head.”

“Why are you saying all this?” Edna sniffled.

Magnus shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t— I couldn’t stop this from happening. But maybe I can… put some of the pieces back together.”

As Edna crawled across the floor, tearing her dress, to slump again by Perry’s body, the chandelier above still twinkling and spilling pools of rainbow onto her distraught face, Magnus wondered if he had managed to fix anything at all.

A hand touched his arm, and he jumped to his feet, backing away.

“Magnus?”

He blinked, and 1924—with its colorful decor and glitzy humans and romantic cataclysms—vanished like it had never been there at all. In its place: the same crumbling, dusty old mansion, the same mundane darkness, the same chilling moonlight, and—

Oh. He was— he was on the roof again. Standing rather close to the edge, at that. 

“Magnus?”

He turned, and Alec was right in front of him, balanced unsteadily on the sloping shingles, his expression wide-open in alarm.

“Alexander,” Magnus breathed, feeling the name roll off his tongue, afraid that anything louder would shatter the silence.

“What are you doing up here?” Alec asked cautiously.

It took a moment for the memory to return to him, swamped as it was by a cataclysmic and still-growing pain in his chest. “Helping a friend,” he said.

Alec’s gaze flickered around for said friend, concern mounting in his expression when he saw only the empty roof. But he chose not to address it, asking instead, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Magnus said shakily. “You?” He tried to assess him from where they were still standing several feet apart. Alec didn’t _look_ injured.

“I’m okay. I’d be better if you came away from that ledge.”

Magnus looked down at the drop with a frown. “It’s not a fatal fall.”

This didn’t seem to ease Alec’s worry at all. “Yeah, I know. Will you just come over here anyway? Please?”

He held out a hand. The moonlight cast his face into sharp, desperate planes, his eyes in shadow. Magnus felt very distant from him, separated by years, by centuries, overcome with a torrent of grief that Alec couldn’t begin to understand. No matter how much he craved his touch, folding himself into Alec’s arms right now felt—impossible. A comfort meant for a different Magnus.

“I’m alright,” Magnus assured him, shivering in the cold. And he took a step back.

Alec followed him across the roof. “Magnus, _please_ don’t. We talked about this.”

“I promise I’m alright.”

“You’re shaking.”

Of course he was shaking. It all had to get out _somehow:_ the memories, the violence, the helplessness. The pain. Ragnor’s name beat in his heart like a palpitation, like a broken valve.

“I’m okay. I just need to clear my head,” Magnus promised, and then he was opening a portal, leaping through before he could fully lose his composure, Alec’s cry of _“no, Magnus!”_ echoing behind him.

Cat startled so bad she knocked over her tea when Magnus tumbled into her living room, tears already streaming down his cheeks.

“Jesus, Magnus—”

_“Cat.”_

At the sound of his voice, she looked up at him, gaze locking onto his red-rimmed eyes, her posture suddenly tense and still.

“I talked to Ragnor.”

She came back into motion at that, already reaching for him, sympathy creasing her brow. “Magnus…”

“I’m not crazy!” Magnus snapped. He ran his hands over his face, smearing his makeup, and started pacing. “I know what you think. And I’m not hallucinating, either. I _talked_ to him. In some kind of— _time loop_ of 1924. I talked to him.”

Cat watched him, very still, her hands clenched slightly around her now-empty mug. “You talked to him.”

“I talked to him, I saw him, I— I never thought I’d see him again, it was impossible, it should have been impossible—” he was rambling, fully aware that his composure was spiraling rapidly out of his grasp and unable to stop it. “Maybe I— I could have _saved_ him, if I wasn’t such a coward, too afraid, too— too _selfish_ —”

“Magnus!” Cat snapped out of her daze and grabbed his arm, arresting his nervous movement. “Sit down.”

Magnus did. He had shaken her, he could tell, though her hands were steady as she magicked them each a gin and tonic. Magnus downed his, ignoring the way Cat eyed him in alarm.

“Now,” Cat began, forcibly steady, “I don’t know the mechanics of this particular situation. But you and I both know that you _cannot_ mess with time, no matter what. It _always_ ends badly.”

“It was a time loop,” Magnus insisted, “separate from the regular stream. If I had had more time, if I hadn’t been so distracted by getting to see him again, I could have figured it out—”

“Stop that. There was nothing you could do, and you know it. So just—” all of Cat’s energy left her at once. She deflated “—stop.”

Magnus reached out, slowly, to fold her hand in his. “Cat?”

“You talked to him?” she repeated.

Magnus swallowed. “I did.”

Cat sighed and scrubbed her hands across her face. “I was just getting to the point where thinking about him didn’t hurt so bad.”

Guilt flared in Magnus’s chest. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologize.”

But he should, he needed to, for dragging her back into this grief. Just because Magnus got stuck in his feelings for people didn’t mean everyone else should, too.

“How did he seem? Was he okay? Never mind, that’s a stupid question, it was the past, not the afterlife—”

“In true Ragnor fashion, he was remarkably blasé about the prospect of his own death.” Magnus smiled a little, thinking back on it.

“You told him?”

“Not in so many words, but he sussed me out as soon as he laid eyes on me.”

Cat smiled even as a tear slipped down her cheek. “That sounds like him.”

Magnus squeezed her hand. “I wish you could have spoken to him.”

Cat straightened, brushing away her tears. “I don’t.”

Magnus was about to ask why, but she beat him to it.

“It’s been hard enough already, trying to move on. The last thing I need is to go backwards.”

That was Cat. Practical to a fault. Sometimes Magnus wondered why she put up with his sentimentality.

“Right. Of course,” was all he managed to say.

Cat laid a hand on his arm. “How are you doing?”

Magnus leaned into her touch. He sighed. “I miss him.”

Cat’s smile was sympathetic and pained. “Me too.”

Magnus felt marginally steadier when he portalled back into the loft. Or he thought he did—the portal itself still betrayed his inner turmoil, throwing a gust of wind around the room as it closed, sending papers fluttering to the floor.

“Alexander?” he called out. He probably owed him an apology for fleeing like that.

The loft was quiet, dark. Magnus checked the kitchen, the bedroom, even his own apothecary, though there was little reason for Alec to be there.

Nothing.

Frowning, he fished his phone out of his pocket—noting absently that he had several missed calls, though none from Alec—and called him.

The buzzing that immediately resounded from his jacket made him still, then slowly withdraw Alec’s phone from where he’d stashed it earlier. Magnus watched his own name flash on the screen for a moment, then swiped to end the call.

Well, shit.

The Institute was busy as ever when he portalled into Ops, the lights bright and glaring even at this late hour, hurting his eyes. He’d barely managed to get his bearings when a tiny body slammed into him, spindly arms wrapping around his waist.

“Jesus _Christ,_ Magnus,” Clary said into his jacket, “thank God you’re okay.”

Magnus patted the top of her head absently. “Biscuit, have you seen Alec?”

Clary pulled back so she could look up at him. “He’s out looking for you. He’s worried sick. Everyone is.”

Magnus blinked, confused.

“Didn’t you call him?” Clary asked.

“I have his phone.” He held it up as evidence.

Clary scrambled in her pocket. “I’ll call Jace, I think they’re out together.”

Magnus played with his hands while Clary dialed, feeling uncharacteristically nervous and out of place. Not that he ever felt quite _in_ place at the Institute, but this—this roiling guilt, like he was on the verge of falling into a dreadful understanding—was new and unwelcome. All this effort, for _him,_ when he wasn’t even in danger, just caught up in his own head, as usual.

Clary was holding her phone out to him. “Alec wants to talk to you.”

Magnus took the phone gingerly, and pressed it to his ear, nerves curling in his stomach, and he hated this, feeling nervous around Alec. “Alexander?”

“Magnus, thank the Angel. Are you alright?” Alec sounded mildly panicked, and possibly like he was running.

“I’m fine, darling. I just needed to clear my head, as I said.”

Alec blew out a huge breath. “I know. I— where are you now?”

“The Institute. I can meet you at home?”

“No! Please, just stay there for now? We’re on our way back.”

Magnus exhaled slowly, trying to remain steady. “Very well.”

“Jace’s battery is about to die, so I have to hang up, but I’ll see you in a sec? Okay?” Alec’s tone was pleading.

“Okay.”

Magnus retreated to Alec’s old room, sheltering from the bright lights and relentless noise of Ops. Cat’s steady presence had calmed him temporarily, but the longer he waited, pacing around the small room, the more he could feel grief and panic slipping out from beneath his ribs.

He had— he had already mourned Ragnor, he had done this once, he could do it again.

He didn’t want to, though.

He had just sat down on the bed, clawing his hands into the comforter, when there was a tentative knock at the door, and Alec slipped into the room.

He stepped forward slowly, carefully, his chest heaving as if he had been running right up until he knocked. “Magnus?”

Magnus wanted to reach for him, to smooth his wind-mussed hair, but didn’t. Instead, he just asked, “Are you okay, darling?” because he hadn’t checked thoroughly, had he? How Alec had fared in the time loop. If anyone in that… memory turned nightmare had laid a hand on him, Magnus didn’t know what he would do.

“Am _I_ okay?” Alec said faintly. And then he was sitting on the bed next to Magnus, still not quite touching. “What _happened_ out there?”

“I came after you,” Magnus said. “I thought you had been attacked. But turns out you were just trapped in that time loop.”

“Time loop,” Alec said, trying out the words.

Magnus didn’t really want to get into all of _that._ “I resolved the loop,” he assured Alec. “You shouldn’t have any problems there from now on.”

Alec was looking at him, and it didn’t seem like that was his particular concern. “Okay. Good.” He bit his lip. “Why did I—” his hand twitched in an aborted movement “—why did I find you on the roof?”

Magnus looked up to meet his eyes. Alec’s liquid gaze stared back at him, dark and fragile in the unlit bedroom. A tendril of that dark _something_ curled its way towards Magnus’s heart. “The restless spirit creating the loop. That’s where I found him.”

“And no other reason?”

_“No.”_

“Because you—”

“I’m sorry for leaving so suddenly,” Magnus rushed to say. And he really was sorry, for panicking Alec. It seemed all he did recently was panic Alec. “I realize that must have seemed— but I just needed to clear my head, run some things by Cat.”

“Yeah.” Alec looked down at his hands. “You could have told me where you were going.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Do you know what I’ve been doing, for the past hour?” Alec’s head jerked back up abruptly, eyes hard, lips trembling. He waited for Magnus to respond, but Magnus couldn’t say anything against that look, he _hated_ that look, so Alec continued, with brutal finality, “Checking bridges.”

Magnus’s mouth opened, and then clicked shut, dread crawling into his stomach. “It wasn’t my intention to scare you,” he finally said.

“Obviously.”

“Did you really think—?”

“Don’t act like you didn’t give me reason to.”

“Alec, I—”

Alec turned to him suddenly, taking Magnus’s hands in his own. His palms and eyes were soft, the anger was slipping rapidly from his gaze. “Is something going on?”

Magnus shot him a weak smile, running his thumb back and forth along the side of Alec’s hand. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, darling.” He didn’t know how to explain any of it, especially Ragnor, didn’t know how to condense centuries of friendship into an easily digestible pill. Especially not when those years were already spiraling away from him like tendrils of ink in water.

Alec bit his lip, and started unconsciously rubbing at Magnus’s knee, like he was trying to convince himself Magnus was still there, or maybe just comfort himself.

“Okay.” His mouth worked around the word like he was swallowing unpleasant medicine. “Let’s go home, yeah?”

Magnus nodded and stood, Alec following a tad unsteadily. Alec wrapped an arm around him as he opened the portal, but Magnus couldn’t tell if the intent was to steady Magnus, or himself.

They landed in the loft with a jolt, the warmth a mild shock after the always chilly air of the Institute. Goosebumps prickled up and down Magnus’s arms.

He spun to face Alec. “Have you eaten, darling?”

Alec shook his head. “But I kind of just want to go to bed.”

Magnus felt a little jittery, himself, but he thought sleep might do them both some good. He led the way to the bedroom, turning down the sheets with a flicker of magic. A snap of his fingers, and they were both dressed in pajamas, Magnus’s face makeup-free, Alec’s hair fluffy and clean.

“Easier than a shower, hmm?”

Alec nodded. He had his arms wrapped tight around himself, lips pursed, a tremulous expression on his face. Magnus’s heart panged at the sight.

He placed a hand on Alec’s arm. “Alexander? Are you alright?”

Alec shook his head. “You’re hurting.”

“I’m not hurt.”

Alec jabbed almost violently at his own chest. “In _here._ I can tell, okay?”

Magnus sighed. “Alright, yes. I have some memories of that house. It wasn’t entirely pleasant being back.”

Alec eyed him sharply, like he knew well that that wasn’t close to the full truth.

“But I’ll be okay,” Magnus continued.

Alec rubbed at his eyes, and sighed, a huge breath that deflated his whole body. “Alright, _fine_ ,” he said, defeated. “Let’s just go to bed and not talk about it if that’s what you want.”

Magnus’s jaw clenched. “Yes, let’s.”

They lay across from each other under the covers, not touching. Magnus tried to let the calm of their bedroom seep into him and quiet his still-fluttering nerves. He wasn’t very successful.

Moonlight drifted in through the window, illuminating Alec’s face in sharp, cold planes. His shoulder made a jagged, hunched edge of light in the dark, his hand flexing in abrupt, useless movements in the sheets.

“I talked to you there,” he said suddenly. “In that time loop.”

Magnus shifted restlessly, thrown by this statement. He had almost forgotten that moment—standing in the ballroom, watching young Magnus flirt with Alec, caught by the light of the chandelier playing over their bodies, how they were standing close enough they could surely feel each other’s breath. The irrational jealousy that had seized him by the throat.

“I did see you two together,” Magnus said.

Alec’s hands twisted together. “It was really _weird_ , and confusing, but also sort of familiar? But what I can’t stop thinking about is how _different_ you were.”

“Well, I suppose the time loop could have—”

“No, I mean— all your past selves are still _you_ , of course, and you’re _them,_ but— you’ve changed so much since then? I mean, I could tell, even just from talking to you—the _then_ you—for a few minutes, that you’re almost a completely different person now than you were then.”

Magnus swallowed. He hadn’t realized he’d changed so drastically. Of course, he knew he had changed some—the circumstances around him had changed, after all—but this…

How much had he changed since he’d met Alec?

“Some people believe immortals don’t change,” he said, quirking a brow at Alec, “some immortals believe it themselves. That once you reach a certain point you become static, and external stimuli just bounce off you like water off a duck’s back.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Alec said, “just because you get more time doesn’t mean that you live outside it.”

Magnus shrugged, which was kind of an awkward movement, lying in bed as he was. “Perhaps, but they believe it. It helps them deal with all that time.”

Alec’s dark eyes sought his out. “You don’t think that way, do you?”

“No.” Magnus didn’t believe he was immune to change. Rather, he tended to fluctuate between fervently wishing he was, and being breathtakingly grateful that he wasn’t, depending on his mental state in a given year. “But I do think we grow differently than mortals. In fits and spurts. Plateaus…” he mimed the shape of the curve with his hand, “and sharp inclines. Or declines, I suppose.”

Alec pondered this. “I don’t think that’s unique to immortals,” he eventually said.

Magnus shrugged again. He didn’t have a strong stake in being right. “Maybe not.”

They were silent for a long moment. A more comfortable silence than before, but still, Magnus could feel Alec’s restlessness bleeding across the space between them. He reached out and placed a comforting hand on Alec’s chest.

Alec latched onto his wrist immediately. His palm was warm, his grip firm and steady in contrast with his pulse that Magnus could feel fluttering against his own. He let Alec tug him in until they were pressed together, the warmth of Alec’s body chasing away the cold remnants of that empty mansion still lingering in Magnus’s bones.

He hadn’t realized how cold his nose was until he pressed it against Alec’s chest.

Alec exhaled shakily against his hair, hand stroking idly up and down Magnus’s back. “Are you _sure_ you’re okay? That whole thing was kind of a lot, and it’s just— you looked pretty shook up back at the Institute.”

“I’ll be fine.” He just needed to get a good night’s sleep and forget all of this, and he’d be right as rain in the morning. “Please try to sleep, you must be exhausted.”

Alec stilled against him, and then, with a sigh, he started up his ministrations again. “Okay,” he said, “yeah, okay.”

Magnus awoke with a gasp, throwing Alec’s arm off with the speed with which he sat up. His heart was thudding in his chest, throat closing up, breath leaving him raggedly when it left at all. The serene walls of Ragnor’s country house slowly faded from his vision, but Ragnor’s demon-mauled body stayed bright and vivid before his eyes: bloody, sightless, forever still.

Magnus wanted to throw up.

“Magnus?” 

Moonlight was still puddling on their sheets, darkness curling in the folds of Alec’s shirt. It didn’t seem that much time had passed at all since they’d gone to bed.

“Magnus? Hey, look at me.”

Alec’s hand brushed his arm, so gently, but still Magnus flinched away. An unsettled sensation was circling his chest, screaming at him to move.

But for now, he remained glued to the bed, muscles clenched, breathing through the tightness of his lungs.

“It’s alright,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

“Don’t.” Alec’s voice splintered, but remained soft enough not to disturb the heavy, quiet air. It was only Magnus who was doing that, with his harsh panting. “Don’t do that.” 

The pressure in Magnus’s chest was increasing. He squeezed his arms around himself to contain it.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Magnus, you’re _crying._ ”

And— he _was_. The pain in his chest was spilling down his cheeks in time with his uneven heart. “I’m fine, Alexander,” Magnus said again, breath hitching.

Alec’s wide, sad gaze followed his movements as Magnus lifted a trembling hand to swipe at his eyes. “ _Mag_ nus.”

He looked so soft like this: hair mussed, t-shirt rumpled, hands twitching like he was restraining himself from reaching out. Magnus yearned for him, for his settling touch, wanted to bury his face in his chest until he’d cried out this whole evening.

But it was too much, Alec’s sympathy. Threads of unease were running up and down Magnus’s body, like the floor was shifting, urging him to hide until it all stopped being _so much._ Everything was running through his head again at breakneck speed: Perry’s suicide, Edna’s distress, all the blood, talking to Ragnor—

—Ragnor, _Ragnor, Ragnor._

It was so much, it was _so much_ —he felt himself disintegrating, bones crumbling, soul separating from body, and then he was scrambling out of bed and backing away, almost stumbling, hurtling away from Alec. Alec followed him, eyes wide in alarm, restless body jerked into sudden motion—and Magnus didn’t want to flee from him but he just needed— just needed one second to compose himself, to just _process_ , and then he’d be fine— one second, just _one second_ —

He was in the bathroom, door shut and locked behind him, before he even knew it had happened.

He could feel Alec’s presence through the door. His voice was strained. “Magnus, please let me in.”

Magnus had no recollection of locking the door, and was pretty sure his magic must have done it automatically. He couldn’t fathom unlocking it. He couldn’t fathom _anything_ , everything was moving around him, Ragnor’s voice drifted in his ears, and it was all so much, it was _too_ much—Magnus’s brain gave out under the strain, and then his legs.

He fell. There was no one there to catch him in the barricaded bathroom, and Magnus landed hard on his hip with a yelp. Alec clearly heard the sound, because he moved abruptly and started banging on the door. “Magnus, _let me in. Open the door_.” His voice was trembling, and he sounded frightened, but his tone was firm. More of a command than a request.

Magnus just sat there, sprawled out on the tile, trying to stop his hands from shaking, his chest constricting—everything was collapsing in on him, he couldn’t breathe—he just needed it all to white out, to mute, to _stop_ for one second so he could catch his breath—

—Ragnor, oh _Ragnor_ —

He tangled his hands in his hair and tugged painfully, barely aware that he was sobbing, hyperventilating into the fabric of his pants, face buried in his knees. Alec was yanking on the door now, trying to force it open. He wouldn’t succeed. Magnus’s magic was unbeatable when he felt cornered. Soon enough, Alec realized it and slumped down against the door.

His voice came through the wood again, distraught and resigned. “Listen to me. Can you hear me?”

Magnus didn’t, _couldn’t_ answer, preoccupied with trying to breathe. Alec kept trying anyway.

“Breathe with me, okay? In and out. In… out.”

Magnus tried to follow his breathing.

It took a lot longer than one second for Magnus to tuck the frayed edges of himself away again. Alec kept talking to him, voice muffled through the door, sounding at least as strung out as Magnus felt, but never quieting.

Finally, Magnus felt his heart rate settle. He magicked himself back in order: pajamas straightened, hair combed, tears vanished. He stood and opened the door.

Alec practically fell into the bathroom, still leaning against the door as he was. He jumped to his feet, hands instantly running over Magnus’s face. Whatever he saw only made him look more concerned.

His eyes were red, his hair disheveled. He licked dry lips. “Are you—” he cut himself off, deciding against whatever he had been going to say. The decision broke something in his gaze. “I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Not really,” Magnus said.

Alec nodded. “Um… tea, then? Or something?” His broad hands were still around Magnus’s jaw, thumbs running over recently-dry cheeks, like he was trying to infuse Magnus’s skin with his own strength, never mind that he was the one who looked like he was on the verge of crumpling.

Magnus smiled and cupped his face, willing his hands not to shake, mostly successful in that wish. He marveled at the beautiful, kind man before him, and leaned up to kiss him, hoping to banish the anguish from his eyes.

When he pulled away, Alec looked, if anything, more distressed. Magnus caressed his cheek anyway.

“Some tea would be lovely,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> magnus: i'm going to help everyone but god forbid anyone helps me!
> 
> Perry’s mansion is partially based on the [Old Westbury House](https://www.oldwestburygardens.org/tourthehouse). check it out if you like Gatsby-esque mansions
> 
> as always, i'm also on [tumblr](https://cuubism.tumblr.com) :) 
> 
> next week: matters of the heart


	4. dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up, the violence in this chapter is ****extremely graphic**** , and includes depictions of self-harm (performed under duress)  
> chapter also includes mild sexual content

**dream**

“Magnus? You still back there?” Alec’s voice echoed weirdly through the tunnels, warped and magnified. If Magnus hadn’t watched him turn the corner seconds ago, he’d have had a hard time knowing which way he’d gone.

“Right here,” he reassured him, standing from where he’d crouched to examine something scratched into the tunnel wall. _A+M_ in a heart, pierced through by a cupid’s arrow. Meaningless for their purposes, but he took a moment to smile at the coincidence.

Magnus knew Alec didn’t like being underground, and not just because it made his bow practically useless. The first time they’d gone on a mission below ground—hunting Shax demons in an abandoned subway station—Magnus had picked up on the tension in his husband’s shoulders immediately.

He wouldn’t have pegged Alec as claustrophobic, but Nephilim were creatures of the air if they were anything. Add in the fact that Alec was a long-range fighter, and had spent nearly his entire life under the burden of a repressive system, and well… in retrospect, it made sense.

This was much worse than that subway station.

The catacombs under St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral were much narrower, low arched stone and uneven floors, deeply recessed red lighting—no doubt meant to spook tourists—casting a flat glow over everything. As Magnus rounded the corner to join him, he saw that Alec looked equally spooked by it. He was watching every shadow like it might materialize into a demon.

Which— was not _entirely_ unreasonable.

“Can you just,” Alec started once Magnus had caught up, “stay here?” He gestured to the space beside him.

“Okay,” Magnus agreed easily, hoping it would assuage his fears a little. It probably wouldn’t do to get separated in a demon-infested crypt, anyway.

Alec nodded once, his spine straightening, and continued on.

“This should be sacred ground,” he muttered once they’d passed another turnoff. “With the basilica above, there should be so much angelic power flooding this place that demons would disintegrate as soon as they crossed the threshold.”

“And yet, they’re all over your sensors,” Magnus mused. He watched Alec nervously twirl his seraph blade in his hand. He wasn’t even carrying his bow—or at least had it glamoured—and clearly didn’t like it.

Alec turned to look at him. “Any ideas?”

Magnus shrugged. “It could be that a Warlock is warding them. Though it would take an inordinate amount of power.”

“So it’s unlikely.”

“Relatively, yes.”

They continued on in silence. There had been an uneasiness between them since the Long Island incident, and for the first time in ages Magnus was finding it difficult to talk to Alec.

Alec kept _looking_ at him with this… _longing_ expression, like Magnus wasn’t standing right across the room, and Magnus didn’t know what to do with it. He’d tried initiating sex, but hadn’t gotten very far before he was shut down. Alec didn’t seem to know how to bring up whatever was bothering him, and Magnus didn’t want to talk about _any_ of it, so they just…

…didn’t.

When Magnus blinked out of his thoughts, Alec was doing it again. Looking at him like he was behind a glass wall.

_“What?”_ Magnus snapped. And then immediately regretted snapping.

Alec sighed. “Nothing.”

“No, what?”

_“It’s nothing.”_

Magnus knew it wasn’t. He resisted the urge to grab Alec by the collar and shake an answer out of him.

“It’s not,” he said instead.

Alec closed his eyes as if praying for patience. “You want to do this _now?”_

_No. Yes. No._

_No._

“No, I don’t. I’m sorry,” Magnus said, guilt turning over in his stomach. Some subconscious part of his brain had recognized that Alec already felt cornered down in the catacombs, and had intentionally chosen _this_ moment to push. Magnus felt a little queasy at the thought.

They kept walking, and then, not looking at him, Alec said, “It’s just— your burns still aren’t healed.”

_What?_

Magnus blinked, and touched his neck absently. It still stung a little to do so. “They’ll heal eventually.”

“It’s been _four weeks_.”

“Magical injuries are tricky.”

“And you aren’t letting me treat them,” Alec continued as if Magnus hadn’t spoken.

“I’m perfectly capable of doing it myself.”

“That’s not— I know you are.” He sounded frustrated. “But you don’t _have_ to.”

Magnus blinked at him. “You think I wouldn’t ask you if I needed help with the burn ointment?”

Alec tugged at his hair. “You’re not _understanding_ me.”

“Then say it _differently_.” Annoyance bled into Magnus’s tone despite his best intentions.

Alec stopped walking. He turned to face Magnus, gaze wide and helpless. “You just— you never let me take care of you.”

It was a breathtakingly painful confession, one that would lodge itself into Magnus’s chest if he let it.

He crossed his arms. “You take care of me. You make nice dinners for me. You draw bubble baths for me. You put _ointment_ on my _burns_.”

“Stop being deliberately obtuse,” Alec snapped. “You know that’s not—”

Something _cracked_ far down the tunnel.

Instantly, Alec’s blade was aglow in his hand, his gaze sharp on the long, dark corridor ahead. “Stay behind me.”

Magnus scoffed, maintaining his place by Alec’s side, magic curling around his fingers.

The red glow of the sconces ended within a few feet. Beyond: the pitch-black underground. Magnus felt comfortable in the darkness, could wear shadows like a second skin, his eyes already adjusting to the lack of light.

Alec tensed beside him. The close darkness intensified his dislike of the narrow tunnels, Magnus knew. He pressed a reassuring hand to Alec’s elbow, and Alec turned to smile softly at him, the expression nearly invisible in the gloom.

The cold, flat glow of Alec’s seraph blade could only illuminate a few feet in front of them. Magnus stepped carefully, feeling his way through the darkness with his magic. He couldn’t _sense_ any demons in their immediate path, nor any other living creature that could have made a sound.

He was about to say as much to Alec when the sound came again: a _crack_ like a bolt of lightning in miniature, like the cathedral’s stone was splitting from foundation to cupola. Magnus felt it like a shearing of his bones, a sudden disjointedness in the air.

Heart fluttering, spine aching in phantom pain, he came to an abrupt stop, grabbing Alec’s arm to still him as well.

“What was that?” Alec asked, eyes wide and alarmed. _Had he felt it, too?_

“I think someone’s trying to—”

_Screeeeech!_

Magnus bent double, hands clamped over his ears, as an ascending whine rippled through the tunnel’s ambient magic, nearly bursting his eardrums. Alec’s hand dropped to his shoulder, and he was shaking him, probably saying something although Magnus couldn’t hear anything over the screaming—

It ended with a _pop_ , and Magnus stumbled upright, ears ringing, and—

Alec’s hand was gone from his shoulder.

“Alec.” He spun in a circle, looking for him, realizing something had _changed_ in the fabric of reality around him. _“Alec!”_

He was alone.

He turned back the way they had come, hoping to find _something_ —only to suddenly run straight into a wall where there hadn’t been one before.

Magnus didn’t panic easily, but he could already feel it curling under his ribs. He was understanding Alec’s claustrophobia better with each passing second.

He didn’t have to try to make one to know that a portal wouldn’t work in this space. He could feel the heavy magic in the air, smothering most of his own. Instead, he pressed his palms to the wall, feeling the rough drag of the brick, the powerful warding running through the mortar. Someone, or some _thing,_ manifested this. The same, he theorized, as the one who had caused that awful screeching.

But the wall didn’t feel new. The same ancient history bled from these stones into his palms as from the rest of the catacombs.

That would take significant power.

“What do you _want?”_ he wondered aloud, then felt something _change_ , again, behind him. He spun around.

There was a door in front of him. A metal door dripping in rust that, in the cool glow of Magnus’s magic, looked more like blood. The same symbol from earlier was scratched in the grime: _A+M._

This was starting to feel like less of a coincidence.

Uneasiness curled in his stomach, but what else could he do but open the door?

Magnus was _certain_ he didn’t step through. He merely blinked, took a breath, and he was standing in a searingly bright luxury apartment, looking out floor-to-ceiling windows over the whole of Manhattan.

The space was minimalist, all glass and steel and white marble. He was so high up he couldn’t make out pedestrians down below, only the golden light cascaded in from between neighboring skyscrapers. It was all strikingly beautiful and made Magnus’s skin crawl.

And he was getting real tired of being moved around without his consent.

Magnus stalked away from the window, raising every personal protection ward at his disposal, determined to find a door, to find _Alec._

But the apartment was a seamless cage. His probes could find no doors, nor even cracks in the space’s construction. He growled, pacing, on the verge of picking up a chair and trying to physically break a window—though how he would get down from the ninetieth floor of a skyscraper, he had no idea—when the bathroom door swung open, and Alec walked out, humming to himself.

Magnus flinched at the sight of him, head spinning—then he was rushing towards him, calling his name: _“Alec!”_

He ran face-first into an invisible wall.

Alec showed no signs of being able to see or hear him as Magnus pounded on the wards now surrounding him, pushing, probing at the spellwork—which was, of course, impeccable—desperate to get out because he knew, just knew in his gut, that something was terribly wrong here, even if he didn’t yet know _what_.

_See me,_ he wanted to plead, _hear me. Please._

But Alec didn’t.

He walked stiffly toward the bed, fiddling with his collar. He was wearing different clothes than earlier: instead of his customary black gear, he was in a tux, barefoot and with his bowtie loose around his neck, jacket tossed somewhere, the top few buttons of his shirt undone.

_Just like their wedding night,_ Magnus thought, fondness pricking his heart at the memory.

_Alec’s hands picking at the buttons of Magnus’s shirt, trembling. The brush of his fingers sending a trill across Magnus’s skin so that he clutched reflexively at Alec’s hips, still insistent on keeping him close after so recently returning from Edom, afraid to let him out of his grasp._

_Leaving a trail of clothes scattered across the bedroom, like they had their first time. And this felt like a first time, like something brand new—it didn’t matter that they had had sex just the night before, because they had never had sex_ as husbands. _Magnus wanted to go slow, to cherish it._

_“Are you okay?” Alec asked, his hands now flat and warm on Magnus’s shoulders, about to push his shirt off of him. “You’ve gone all quiet.”_

_Alec’s stark white shirt contrasted nicely with his runes. Magnus tugged at his bowtie, unwinding it until it hung around his neck, then plucked at the top few buttons of his shirt so the hollow of his throat was exposed._

_“I’m taking you in,” Magnus said. And then, unable to stop his smile, “husband.”_

_Alec grinned, and then he was walking Magnus backward towards the bed. Magnus fell onto the sheets, eyes closed, pulling Alec down with him, like an inversion of their first time, and really, Magnus would be perfectly happy if this time went exactly the same way, all gentle and eager—_

_“Magnus?”_

_Alec’s voice sounded—_ wrong. _Strained, like his breath was leaving him quicker than it ought. Something was dripping onto Magnus’s chest._

_He opened his eyes._

_Blood was spreading across Alec’s shirt, a growing puddle of it, spilling down through the pristine fabric to pool on Magnus’s chest. Magnus tore open the shirt, and froze in horror._

_A wound was spreading across Alec’s chest, starting at the center of his breastbone and reaching outward, exposing bone and muscle, growing so_ fast, _impossibly fast—_

_“Magnus?” Alec sounded terrified, voice hi-pitched and hollow in a way Magnus had rarely heard it. His arms shook, and then gave out, and he collapsed onto Magnus just as Magnus pressed a hand to the wound, pushing magic into it, pushing everything he had into it, heart fluttering wildly._

_The tang of blood filled his nostrils, it was slick between their skin, it was_ everywhere—

Magnus gasped and blinked back to awareness in a dark space, the feel of Alec, of everything gone from him, everything except—

—the smell of blood.

He sat up abruptly, pressing his hand to his nose, which was bleeding. “Alec?”

There was no response in the catacombs, only the distant dripping sound of water running down the walls.

“Alexander?” he tried again, louder this time, then strained to listen.

From incredibly far off, echoey and distorted by the tunnels: _“…Magnus?”_

Magnus shoved himself to his feet, and immediately keeled over as his balance deserted him, falling to his hands and knees on the dusty stone, and there was something familiar in the way the floor tilted under him—

Then he was squinting in the bright, overlapping light of the apartment, and Alec was standing before him, his palm sliced open, drawing a sigil in blood onto the invisible wall of the wards, and all of Magnus’s thoughts escaped him.

“Alec?” Magnus stepped closer. Alec was barely looking at what he was writing, instead staring off somewhere in the middle distance, like he was listening to a far-off voice instead of the world around him.

“Alexander?” Magnus tried again, and sagged in relief when Alec _finally_ met his eyes with a strained smile.

“So you _can_ see me,” Magnus breathed.

“Of course,” Alec said, voice thready. It sounded like he was barely maintaining his composure. “Of course I can see you.”

Magnus pressed a hand to where Alec’s was still drawing on the wall. If not for the wards, they would have been palm to palm. “Darling,” he said softly, and watched the way Alec’s mask started to crack, “what are you doing?”

“Putting the finishing touches on the ritual,” Alec said, finishing the sigil, “Once it’s complete, this”—he pointed to what he’d just drawn—“will let you out of there.”

Magnus read the sigil backwards through the wall. “‘Eros?’ It’s a love spell?”

“Of a kind.”

_“Whose_ spell, darling?” Magnus watched Alec flinch at the pet name, like it was physically wounding whatever barrier he’d put up. Which meant Magnus would just have to lay it on more thickly, because he recognized this kind of behavior in his husband: the caginess, the avoidance of touch, the mechanical movements. He was trying to sacrifice his own well-being to protect Magnus.

And, well. That just wouldn’t stand.

Alec reached through the wards to cup Magnus’s face in his bloody palm, gaze desperate, _begging_ him to drop it. “Does it really matter?”

“Of course it—”

He was cut off by Alec’s mouth pressing against his, tongue pushing between his lips, and it wasn’t _at all_ the way Alec normally kissed him, it felt—

—mercenary.

This was only confirmed when Alec took Magnus’s bottom lip between his teeth and bit down, _hard_ , drawing blood. Magnus yelped and pulled back, looking up to find that Alec was already back behind the wards, his own lip also split, their blood intermingling in his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Magnus,” Alec said, his desperate eyes pleading for forgiveness.

“Don’t apologize, tell me what’s going on,” Magnus demanded, blood dripping down his chin, joining the stream still trickling steadily from his nose.

Alec backed away, and Magnus gentled his tone. “Talk to me, love. Are you being coerced? Please, let me help.”

Alec hesitated, then finally said, “It’s a sacrifice. To the god of love.”

Oh. Oh _no._

Magnus had never performed such a ritual himself—he wouldn’t dare—but he’d heard stories. Love spells were already tricky and liable to backfire, but love _rituals?_ Those could never end well, they required too much. _Extreme_ sacrifices.

Magnus didn’t know if this “god of love” was a real god or some demon posing as one, but he knew without a doubt that this had to end just like the stories.

He pressed his palms to the wards, trying again to break them. “Alec, listen to me, you can’t go through with this. It demands too much. It’s too dangerous.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Alec straightened, resolve hardening again in his eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said, wandering towards the kitchen, “you won’t get hurt. I made sure of it.”

It wasn’t his own safety that Magnus was worried about.

He redoubled his efforts on the wards, smacking them with his palms for good measure, snarling in frustration. What fucking good was he as a Warlock if he couldn’t even get out of a simple cage?

“You’re wasting your time with that,” Alec said as he pulled something from a drawer and stuck it in his waistband.

“Come let me out, then.”

“I _can’t_.” Alec’s voice broke. “You’ll try and stop me.”

_Damn right I will._ “I won’t. Just come over here, darling. Let’s talk about it. We’ll figure this out.”

Alec wavered, and then he was walking back over to Magnus. But rather than stopping to talk, he stepped right through the wards to cup Magnus’s face properly between his hands. He looked at Magnus like he was memorizing his face, bloody mouth curved in a soft frown.

“You deserve a better last kiss than that,” he said, and then he was ducking down to kiss Magnus how he always did, soft and lingering, nudging his lips open instead of pushing, soothing over the cut with his tongue. It felt like a farewell. Magnus pulled him in, one hand in his hair, the other latched around his wrist, afraid of what would happen if he let go.

But Alec pulled away, yanking his arm out of Magnus’s grip.

“I’m sorry,” he said, now avoiding Magnus’s gaze, as he stepped back through the wards. “But this is the only way to save you.”

Suddenly there was a kitchen knife in his hand—he’d pulled it from his waistband—and Magnus’s heart jumped into his throat.

“No,” he said, pounding on the wards, “No, I’m not letting this happen. We’ll find a workaround, we always do. Tell me what the ritual demands.”

Alec was walking towards the bed. He had gone distant now, separating himself from Magnus’s words. The decision already made. “‘A lover’s blood, and a lover’s tears.’”

“So let’s prick our fingers and slice up some onions and call it a day.”

Alec’s laugh was humorless. “It’s not that easy.”

No, of course not.

“They have to come _from the heart,”_ Alec continued, gesturing to his own.

“All rituals have loopholes,” Magnus said, desperate, searching for _anything,_ “we’ll figure it out. Just— just let me think—”

“Running out of time,” Alec mused, spinning the knife in his hand.

“Time? What do you mean, time?”

“Sun’s setting.” It cast Alec’s face in red and orange planes, the whole apartment flooded with fiery light. “But it’s still Valentine’s Day.”

_Valentine’s Day. Shit._

If there were a day to perform love-centric rituals, that was it. That particular day wasn’t chosen for the holiday on a whim—it was a day when magical currents converged to amplify emotional spells, love spells in particular.

But if the effect of a spell was amplified, that meant the price exacted was, too.

“Please,” Magnus begged—and how he detested begging for anything, but he was at his wits’ end— “my darling, please don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”

Alec turned distraught eyes on him. “Like you aren’t already leaving me.”

A current of sheer terror shot through Magnus’s body. When he spoke, it was barely a breath. “What?”

“It’s okay,” Alec said in a tone that suggested it was entirely _not_ okay, “I would never try and force you to stay if you wanted to go.”

“Alexander,” Magnus pleaded, floundering suddenly in a dark sea, “what on earth are you talking about?”

Alec looked at him sadly. “You can’t even tell. You’ve already left.”

Magnus struggled for breath, wracking his brain to try and remember what he had _done_ , what he could have possibly _said_ to have caused this.

“But it’s okay,” Alec said again, like he was trying to convince himself. “It’s okay. I’m still picking you. I’m sorry, Magnus. I love you.”

He raised the blade.

Magnus had to— had to say _something. Anything,_ to stop this.

But he couldn’t.

The words wouldn’t come, he could barely think, his usual eloquence deserted him.

Alec had a tendency to do that to him, to scramble all his pretty words up until he was reduced to base emotions, to flesh and bone, to touch and taste and gasped confessions. No more coyness, only heart, drawn out and cut open on his chest.

But Magnus was used to that happening during sex, during intimate moments when he loved him so much he felt like his heart could burst from it.

Not like this.

Alec, holding a blade to his chest, tears slipping faster and faster down his cheeks the longer he stared at Magnus, and Magnus just— mute. Useless.

He couldn’t talk him down with love. But maybe…

Maybe he could be cruel.

Magnus knew how to be cruel. He detested it. But he knew how to use it as a tool. All it took to be cruel was being able to read someone’s insecurities and sharpen them into a weapon. Easy. Dangerous.

His father had made him good at it, and Magnus had vowed never to use those skills again—but still found himself dipping into them from time to time.

He never thought he’d use them on Alexander.

“Alec,” he said, alarmed at how even his voice sounded, like this was nothing, instead of everything. Alec turned to look at him, slowly, eyes wide, picking up on something in the tone. “If you go through with this,” the words scraped up Magnus’s throat like bile, but he forced them out, “I swear to God, I actually _will_ leave you.”

Alec’s whole body jerked like Magnus had taken the knife from his hands and gutted him. Magnus felt like he had gutted himself. But he wouldn’t take the words back, not if they would stop this. His heart was fluttering in his chest, panicky and broken, but he wouldn’t take them back.

Alec swallowed hard. “It’ll be a little late for that.”

He plunged the knife into his chest.

The world fractured with the blow; everything splintered, slowed, scattered apart and then came back together with a crash—or at least that was what it felt like. Magnus could barely hear his own screaming over the ringing in his ears, and the sound of Alec’s breastbone cracking under the pressure of the knife would echo on his deathbed, he was sure of it.

Alec didn’t scream, or even cry out, just grunted softly like he was helping Magnus move a piece of heavy furniture instead of carving open his own chest, and Magnus was sure he must be losing his mind, this couldn’t be happening, it _couldn’t be happening._

Alec dragged the knife through his flesh, opening his chest wider and wider—blood was pouring out over his hands—Magnus felt it in his own chest, the violent opening of all that they were—and he didn’t know how Alec was still _standing—_

As he thought it, Alec collapsed back onto the bed, knife still embedded in him, held in a loose grasp.

Magnus collapsed with him, fell to his knees behind the wards, all of his strength evaporated. He pressed his hands to his eyes, willing his tears not to fall—he wouldn’t give Eros the satisfaction of a completed ritual—but it was too late. Pressure was building in his head, his chest was caving in from the pain, he needed an outlet.

He sobbed into his hands, the tears spilling down his cheeks doing little to relieve the pressure he felt all over. The feeling was so immense, grief and frustration and anger and _loss_ so profound it was like his soul had been ripped out of him, and Magnus didn’t know what to do with any of it except to sit there, still, while it tore through him—

—and then, as he always did, to stand back up, magic curled in his palms.

Magnus didn’t know if it was possible to kill a god, but he was going to find out.

A choked gasp from the bed derailed his warpath. He turned to look.

Alec was still _moving,_ as if in a trance, bloody hands clasped around the edges of his split ribcage, pulling it apart. Ribs splintered under his grasp, and this— this shouldn’t be _possible_ , not with how weak he must be. How was he not _dead?_

A shard of bone must have pierced his heart, for suddenly he cried out, and blood was flowing more freely. As if this was what he had been waiting for, he went abruptly still, arms dropping to his sides.

The wards vanished.

Then Magnus was stumbling forward, Alec’s name on his lips, arms already outstretched to touch, to fix, to do _something._

He reached the edge of the bed, stood before the pool of blood seeping across the pristine white sheets. Tears were still spilling down his face, but he paid them no attention, all his breath stolen by the tableau before him.

The thing was, one didn’t live for four hundred years without studying every subject to some degree.

Which was to say, Magnus understood anatomy. He’d seen human skeletons up close—in museums, in laboratories, in the Spiral Labyrinth—and marveled at how, despite the apparent solidity of the body, the skeleton, stripped of all its flesh, looked so… _breakable._ Each brittle rib just waiting to be snapped open to get at the tender organs beneath.

But he had never thought of Alec that way. Like— like he was just… fragile _pieces_ , layered upon each other to build something soft and warm and inexplicable.

Until today.

Alec’s chest was a gaping cavity—skin carved open, breastbone split in two, ribs splintered and piercing lungs that still shuddered for breath. Through the crack in the bone, Magnus could see his heart still beating, a stuttering pulse of red. He looked so breakable, so already broken.

The light of the setting sun cast each jagged bone in a harsh glow, Alec’s body illuminated by fire. Magnus was momentarily, grotesquely, spellbound by the sight.

Then he was hurtling forward to be by his side.

He fell to his knees by the bed, hands hovering, unsure what to do, how to fix this. His heart was hammering in his chest, adrenaline racing through his system to the point where he could barely parse out a coherent thought other than _do something_. He placed his hands delicately on Alec’s chest, cringing at the tackiness of the blood, and infused the wounds with as much magic as he could summon.

_Reconstruct heart. Knit together bones. Reinflate lungs._

He was distantly aware that he was speaking, his voice harsh in the quiet room, “—that’s it, darling. That’s it. It will be alright. J-just stay still. I’ve got you. It’s alright—”

Alec didn’t react to his magic. He was completely still. Magnus pushed even more magic into him, hands shaking with the strain. He would fix this. He _would._

_Magnus,_ Alec was saying, though his lips weren’t moving.

_“Shhh,”_ Magnus told him, voice shaky, “don’t speak, it’s okay. I’ve got you. I— I’m going to fix you. It’s okay.”

_Magnus!_

“Hush, darling, don’t talk, you’ll only— you’ll make it worse, just—”

Alec’s body vanished from under his hands. Cold air brushed his cheek. And then the world was folding in around him, collapsing in on itself like an origami crane—

Everything was dark, and Magnus was flat on his back on the cold ground, water dripping down on him from some crack in the tunnel ceiling far above.

He lurched to his feet, hyperventilating, checking his hands—no blood—checking for—

Alec.

“Alec!” he screamed, the word reverberating down the tunnel.

From somewhere far off, a voice echoed back. _“Magnus?”_

Magnus ran in his direction, glancing off walls in his haste. “Alexander!”

Around a far corner, he found him: upright and whole. Magnus ran to him, pulled him into a desperate hug before he could think to do more sensible things like healing a gaping chest wound.

_Like healing a gaping chest wound._

Alec’s arms were just coming up to wrap around him when Magnus wrenched out of his grasp and shoved him up against the tunnel wall, hands going to his chest, ripping open the fabric of his shirt to expose his skin. Panic and grief were still tearing through him, and he pressed a palm flat to Alec’s heart, probing deep with his magic, looking for wounds, internal bleeding, shattered bone—

He seemed… _fine._ There was a thin scar over his breastbone—it looked recently healed—but no mortal damage, no exposed organs. Relief crowded up Magnus’s throat in the form of a choked sob. He kept running his hands over Alec’s body anyway—what if there was something he _missed_ —

_“Magnus,”_ Alec was saying. “Please say something. You’re scaring me.”

_“I’m_ scaring _you?_ You— you were—”

_Dead._

_And by your own hand._

Before Magnus even thought of moving he was snatching Alec’s seraph blade from his belt and backing away with it clutched to his chest. He couldn’t see Alec with a blade in his hand, not anymore. He wasn’t even sure he was going to let Alec cut vegetables ever again.

Alec watched him with wide eyes. “I was _what?”_ he asked carefully. He didn’t try to take the blade back.

Magnus felt frozen to the ground, afraid that if he moved, this would all dissolve around him. “Dying,” he whispered, “I couldn’t save you.”

Confusion clouded Alec’s gaze. “What are you talking about?”

Hysteria bubbled up in Magnus’s chest. “What am I—”

He cut off as Alec’s words finally hit him and dropped like a stone in his stomach. It was a struggle to rein in his breathing. “You— you didn’t…?” 

Alec’s face creased in concern. He took a step closer. “Didn’t what? Magnus, what happened?”

“What happened to _you?”_ Magnus countered.

Alec scratched the back of his head as he thought. “Got knocked out. Didn’t even see what hit me. Woke up and you weren’t there.” As an afterthought, he added, “Had a weird dream.”

“A dream?” Magnus pressed.

“Yeah. But I don’t really remember it. Only flashes.”

So it had just been Magnus, then. Alone, with his world collapsing around him.

“You had a weird dream, too?” Alec asked, tentative.

“Not a dream,” Magnus said, rubbing his arms. “It felt very real.”

“An illusion, then,” Alec said quietly. “What did you see?”

Magnus looked around at the dark tunnel, a shiver running up his spine. “Not here. Let’s go home.”

Alec nodded, reaching out to take Magnus’s hand.

“If you have any other Shadowhunters patrolling,” Magnus said as he opened a portal—which finally worked, now that whatever wards had entrapped them were gone— “tell them to be careful.”

Although he didn’t think there was any real danger. The ritual had already found its bloody consummation. 

The deep red light of dusk was leaning into the loft when they landed in their living room. The sight turned Magnus’s stomach, and he flicked the blinds shut. Alec watched him as he went around and turned all the lamps on by hand, banishing the darkness to its corners.

Their wedding photo hanging on the wall was crooked. Magnus straightened it. It fell crooked again. He straightened it again.

“Magnus…” Alec started, clearly nervous. “What did you see?”

_Oh, just you stabbing yourself in the heart for me. No big deal._ “A ritual.”

“A… ritual?”

“It required…” Magnus walked around the living room, straightening things, as he spoke, avoiding Alec’s eyes, “a lover’s blood, and a lover’s tears.”

“Oh.” From his tone, it sounded like Alec was starting to get the first hint of where this was going. “Magnus—”

“You, of course, decided you were going to provide the _blood_. Without consulting me, I might add.”

“Magnus—”

“Which you then _did,_ in _spectacularly_ self-sacrificial fashion.”

“Magnus, please—”

He whirled to face Alec, and as he blinked, Alec’s pierced, sacrificial corpse flickered into and out of existence, superimposed over the real Alec, standing uncertainly before him.

The all-encompassing terror and grief in Magnus’s chest morphed rapidly into fury.

“—just tell me what happened.”

Magnus stalked over to him. _Do you want me to tell you about how you didn’t listen to me when I tried to help? How I had to watch you carve open your own chest? How I poured all of my magic into you and it didn’t do anything?_ He stopped right in front of Alec. “You killed yourself,” he said.

Alec flinched.

Magnus pressed on the wound. “You grabbed a kitchen knife from the drawer”—he mimed the action—“and plunged it into your heart.” His voice scraped harshly as he said it.

“Magnus, I’m—”

“I tried to save you, but I failed,” Magnus continued, tone cold, “you were quite thorough. Your lungs were destroyed, your heart—”

“Magnus—”

“You were just so _desperate_ to save me—”

“Magnus!” Alec finally broke in, eyes wide and pained. “I’m— I’m so sorry you had to see all that, I’m _so_ sorry, but I—” he cleared his throat “—I don’t understand why you’re angry with me for something that happened in a dream.”

_Because I know you’d do it in real life._ “Not a dream,” Magnus said.

“An illusion, then. It wasn’t real.”

Magnus jabbed at his chest. “Then explain that. Where did you get that?”

Alec pulled away the torn edges of his shirt to reveal the thin scar running down his breastbone. “I—” he sounded alarmed. “I don’t remember.”

“You _got it_ when you stabbed yourself in the heart!”

“Oh, yeah?” Alec crossed his arms. “Are you still going to leave me because of it?”

“I’m thinking about it!” Magnus snapped.

And then froze.

Alec flinched, his expression deeply wounded, but that wasn’t why Magnus froze.

“How—” he tried, voice wavering. The ground was shifting under his feet. “How did you know I said that?”

Alec looked startled by the question. He rubbed at the scar on his chest. “I— I don’t know.”

They stared at each other, unsure how to broach the confused, widening gap between them.

Finally, Alec shifted on his feet, and said, “Well… are you?” His attempt at nonchalance fell totally flat. Magnus could read the fear in his tone, in his wavering stance.

Fear about _them._ About the solidity of their _marriage._

When Magnus didn’t respond, struck dumb by his own carelessness with this gentle heart that meant everything to him, Alec moved as if to turn away.

“I guess that—”

Magnus grabbed his face, _hard_ , and smashed his lips into his.

A little _too_ hard, perhaps—but Magnus wanted him, _needed_ him close, closer than was possible, he wouldn’t let him slip away again. For a moment he feared it was too much, the wrong response—but then Alec was kissing him back, hands clawing in his hair—rough, painful, delicious—and Magnus forgot everything except the way the feeling of him under his hands crashed against the grief still lingering in his chest to fill him up with so much emotion he couldn’t breathe. 

He pushed Alec back, too fast, almost making him stumble—and totally forgot about opening the bedroom door. They came to an abrupt stop against it, Alec cracking the back of his head against the wood. Magnus was on the verge of murmuring an apology but Alec wouldn’t let go of his mouth, just freed one hand to slide open the door and yanked Magnus through.

His hands were rough and Magnus loved it, needed it, grabbing at Alec’s skin, his clothes with just as much tension, trying to press all his feelings into Alec’s body. He tugged at Alec’s shirt, muttering, “less— less _clothes_ ,” needing Alec’s skin on his own but having nowhere near the presence of mind to magic them naked.

He kicked off his boots, feeling restless, watching Alec do the same with an absence of his usual grace. Even in that brief moment, Magnus wished his hands were still on him. He would prove it to him, that he would never let him go, even if he had to infuse the sentiment directly into Alec’s skin. 

Alec yanked off his shirt, and Magnus sucked in a breath, not moved, as he usually would be, by his husband’s glorious physique, but rather by the evidence, standing and breathing before him, that Alec was alive, whole and _alive_. It felt impossible.

Alec was undoing his belt—Magnus didn’t give him the time to get it all the way off. He placed his hands on Alec’s broad, smooth pectorals— _unmarred, uninjured, not even bruised_ —and pushed him down on the bed. Alec caught Magnus’s biceps at the last second so Magnus tumbled down with him, landing on his chest, all the breath punched out of him.

Alec’s hands ghosted up his sides. Everywhere he touched him Magnus’s skin lit up, desire flaring through him, entwining with the premature grief still curled around his heart. It felt like they hadn’t touched in eons, but there was no time for gentle exploration—Magnus was desperate, and riding the aftershocks of terror, and he needed to _feel_ him, to feel him unburdened in the fulfillment of his desire, as alive as he would ever be. So as Alec started pulling at his shirt, Magnus shoved his hand down Alec’s unbelted pants and wrapped it around him.

Alec’s hands slipped off his shirt—his head tilted back as he gasped—and Magnus gave him not a moment’s reprieve before he was leaning forward over that gloriously arched neck and _biting._

Alec keened, the sound vibrating under Magnus’s lips. Magnus swallowed it, sucking over the mark he had made.

_“Mag— Magnus,”_ Alec breathed, and then he was re-gathering himself, muscles coiling under Magnus’s chest. His hands gripped Magnus’s arms and he pulled him up his body to meet his lips. Magnus lost his grip on him and brought his hands up into Alec’s hair instead, pulling, as Alec’s hands glanced over his shoulders, his jawline, tongue gently splitting his lips. 

It seemed Alec had a different tone in mind for the evening than Magnus did, based on the way he kissed him: something gentle and pained, full of longing like it really _had_ been eons since they’d touched each other. And maybe it had. But Magnus didn’t want _gentle_ , he wanted to be roughened up—if Alec wouldn’t let him get hurt then he’d just have to do it himself.

He dug his fingers into Alec’s hair and pushed him down into the mattress. Alec moaned into his mouth, but then he was shifting under Magnus again, grabbing his arms and flipping them.

The world spun, and Magnus froze.

It shouldn’t have— something so small shouldn’t have affected him so deeply. But Alec flipped them, and suddenly Magnus was back in Lucy’s apartment, the floor tilting under him—he was sinking in that fountain, the ground gone from beneath his feet—he was in that crumbling mansion, his world overturning as Ragnor touched his arm—he was back in that ritual, his life collapsing around him.

Alec’s weight landed on him, strong muscles and soft skin and Magnus couldn’t _breathe._

So he did the only thing he could do. He kept moving.

He widened his legs so Alec could settle between them, grabbing hold of Alec’s neck to pull him deeper, deeper, _deeper,_ never mind that the bedroom was shifting around him now, that Alec’s kisses were robbing him of breath, his touch disorienting—he ground up against him, giving him the pressure he craved—

“Magnus,” Alec panted, “Magnus, _stop._ ”

Magnus pulled his hands away, breathing heavily. Alarm shot through him. “What? Are you okay?”

“ _I’m_ fine,” Alec said. So why had he— “but you’re not.”

Magnus lay there, legs still spread, feeling unmoored, as Alec rolled off him, freeing him from the cage of his weight.

“What happened?” Alec asked. He reached out, hesitantly, like he wasn’t sure his touch was welcome, to brush Magnus’s disheveled hair out of his eyes.

Magnus’s gaze dropped to the scar on his chest. _Useless_ , a voice echoed in his head, and he wasn’t even sure if it was his own. _Useless. What use are you as a Warlock if you can’t even protect your husband from himself?_

Magnus looked back up into Alec’s bright eyes, and suddenly he _had_ to tell him something, _right_ fucking now, he couldn’t live another second without making sure he understood. “Alexander,” his voice was scratchy, he still felt too shaky to even push himself upright, “I could never, _never_ walk away from you, my love.” 

Alec exhaled shakily, and then he was sitting upright and pulling Magnus up and into his arms, crushing him to his chest.

“You know that, right?” Magnus said into his collarbone. Alec’s arms were warm and strong, his stubble tickled Magnus’s temple. Something fluttered in Magnus’s chest and threatened to break.

“Yes.”

“Do you _understand?”_

_“Shhh,”_ Alec hushed into his hair, “it’s okay. Just let me hold you.”

Magnus did, tentatively clutching at Alec’s body, feeling the solid _still-aliveness_ of him, the heartbeat pounding against his own, the blood thrumming under his fingertips.

This gentleness, this peace— it didn’t need to be spoiled by Magnus’s pain. Here, in Alec’s arms, was a sacred place. Magnus had so rarely found such spaces in his life. He wouldn’t let himself ruin this one.

He slowly extracted himself from Alec’s arms, taking hold of his hand. “Come. Let’s get some food in you. You must be starving.”

Alec let himself be drawn to his feet, but he was frowning. “Magnus—”

“I’ll even let you treat my burns, hmm?” Magnus said, moving towards the bedroom door. That would make him happy, right?

Alec looked like he was weighing his options. “Fine. But only if you _promise_ you’re feeling better.”

Magnus waved a hand. “Nothing I can’t manage, darling, I assure you.”

Alec looked less than reassured by this response, but he followed Magnus to the kitchen anyway.

“You’re so _good_ at that,” Alec murmured later, sounding wondrous and troubled, as they sat on the couch, cradling half-drunk glasses of wine.

Magnus turned to look at him, at his profile outlined by the warm glow of the lamps. “Good at what?”

Alec jumped, like he hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. But he shifted to look at Magnus anyway. “Deflecting.”

Magnus frowned. “I’m not deflecting.”

Alec sighed, a sad little sound, and collapsed back against the couch. “Never mind, I was just talking to myself anyway.”

Magnus leaned forward onto his knee. “What do you think I’m deflecting?”

Seemingly emboldened by the opening, Alec said, a little louder than before, “You never actually told me what was bothering you. Before. When we were—” _kissing and then you freaked out on me._ He didn’t need to say it. The words lingered in the air without him needing to give them voice.

Magnus tugged at his ear. “I just got disoriented, that’s all. You moved us fast, and I guess it took my brain a moment to catch up.” 

Alec frowned. He tried to meet Magnus’s gaze, but Magnus kept his eyes on his hands instead. “That’s never happened to you before.”

Magnus shrugged.

“Well, anyways. I’m sorry,” Alec continued.

“For what?”

“For upsetting you. Even if it was an accident.”

Magnus swallowed. _That’s not all,_ he wanted to say. _When you flipped us, and the world spun… all the pain that I thought I’d gotten over came rushing back. I don’t like that feeling, Alec, I—_

“Are you really afraid that I’ll leave you?” Alec’s voice was so quiet Magnus almost didn’t hear him.

Magnus leaned back against the couch, craning his neck to look up at the ceiling. “Of course not.”

“Magic can’t create fears,” Alec intoned, “only bring them out.”

Magnus didn’t have anything to say to that.

“So, you _are_ afraid,” Alec whispered. “Tell me about it?”

Magnus cleared his throat. “I already told you—”

“What you saw, I know. I meant how you _felt._ ”

Magnus’s jaw flexed, the words stuck in his throat. “I’m—”

“If you say you’re fine, we’re going to have an issue.”

Magnus didn’t know how to explain the tremors of panic still running through him, didn’t know how to burden Alec with his fears without crushing them both.

_I’m afraid that I can’t give you what you want. I don’t— I don’t_ know _what you want from me. You feel very far away from me even though you’re sitting right there. I feel like I’m falling short and I don’t know how not to do that, and wouldn’t it be such a cruel irony to, for the first time, lose someone because I’m_ not enough?

“Magnus, please talk to me.”

Magnus clenched his fists in the fabric of his shirt.

“Magnus…” Alec reached for him, and before Magnus could make the conscious decision to move he was up and striding to the other end of the living room.

Alec followed, startled and tentative, watching as Magnus tipped over the vase on the table near his armchair, caught the pack of cigarettes that tumbled out, lit one with a shaky flicker of magic.

The smoke curling into his lungs soothed him against the pained look in Alec’s eyes.

He strode out onto the balcony before he could fill the loft with too much smoke, leaned against the railing, looking out over the cold lights of the city. It was _freezing,_ and _snowing,_ and he was only wearing thin pants and his still-unbuttoned shirt, but he didn’t magic himself a coat—the bite of the wind was taking the edge off his unease, slotting his emotions back into place.

There was no despair out in the cold, there was only the _cold._

“Magnus,” Alec said from behind him, “please come back inside. I promise I’ll drop it. Let’s go to bed.”

Magnus took another long drag of his cigarette, watching the embers flare against the dark night. “I’ll be in in a minute.”

“You’re going to give yourself frostbite.”

_Now that was a thought. Maybe then he could feel something other than this_ thing _that was gnawing at his chest._

Shivering, he pressed a hand deliberately to the railing, feeling the cold seep into his veins, slowing the blood flow, quieting the spinning world. It hurt. A lot.

Magnus pressed down harder. “Just a minute, darling,” he said to Alec, “I’ll come join you in a minute.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter alternatively titled: "magnus being the least self-aware person on earth" 
> 
> if you're a nerd like me who reads a lot of poetry, consider this chapter in relation to ['Underbelly' by Nicole Homer](https://poets.org/poem/underbelly)
> 
> Particularly this quote:  
>  _"so let's say, in the story, I was human  
>  and made of human-things: fear  
> and hands, underbelly and blade. Let me  
> say it plain: I loved someone  
> and I failed at it. Let me say it  
> another way: I like to call myself _wound  
>  _but I will answer to_ knife."
> 
> (i'm _obsessed_ with this poem for malec)
> 
> next week: catharsis


	5. transcendence - part 1

**transcendence** **– part 1**

“I said _no._ ”

Magnus startled at the sound of Alec’s voice rising. Peeking out of his apothecary, he found his husband pacing across the living room, phone pressed to his ear.

“I’ll happily provide whatever resources you need, but that’s one request I can’t accommodate.”

Magnus raised a brow as Alec turned and their eyes met. _Anything I can help with?_

Alec shook his head, and said into the phone, “No, you can’t. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to deal with it.”

As he hung up, Magnus sidled over to him, running a hand up his arm. Alec’s expression softened as he turned to look at him.

“Crotchety Clave members?”

Alec sighed. “No, just Lorenzo wanting the Institute’s help with something. And it’s not that I— I mean, I want the Warlock community to feel like they can come to us for support, but sometimes Lorenzo’s requests are a little much.”

Magnus hummed, amused. “‘Two muscly Shadowhunters requested to help move his antique chaise lounge?’” he offered, quoting a prior incident.

“Yeah, and that’s just one example.”

Alec cupped his cheek, then slid his hand down to gently touch his neck, peering at it. He was always doing that, checking to see if Magnus’s burns were healed yet—which they were, mostly.

But he didn’t remark on it, merely asked, “Is your potion done?”

Magnus glanced back at the apothecary, where small wisps of steam were curling against the ceiling, the scent of aniseed drifting out into the living room. “It’s simmering.” He patted Alec’s chest, feeling the solid muscle beneath his palm—surreptitiously checking for reopened wounds—and winked at him suggestively. “We have an hour or so.”

Alec’s gaze searched his. “Are you sure that’s a good idea after…”

_After what happened last time._

Magnus pulled his hand away and stepped back. “That’s not going to happen again.”

“How do you know?”

Magnus’s jaw clenched. “Because I won’t let it.”

“That’s not how it _works_ —”

“Well, we won’t know unless we try, will we?” Magnus snapped, suddenly so frustrated he wanted to scream. He just wanted everything to go back to normal, why wouldn’t Alec _help_ him?

Alec’s eyes widened and he took a half-step back, even as he reached out a tentative hand. “Magnus…”

Oh. Magnus’s sleeves were on fire.

Blue flames were sliding out of his clenched palms and up his wrists, and his shirt was crackling, smoke drifting into the air.

God, what was _wrong_ with him? He _never_ lost control so easily, never got angry so easily, especially not with Alec.

Magnus took a deep breath and extinguished the flames, crossing his arms.

“Do you…” Alec swallowed, “wanna talk?”

“I thought I explained what happened.”

“No, I meant— about anything else? _Everything_ else?” Alec seemed at a loss.

“I don’t know what that means, Alexander.”

“I guess the answer’s ‘no,’ then.” Alec started to turn away, and Magnus suddenly couldn’t bear the thought of Alec turning away from him, not after the catacombs.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he said quietly.

Alec turned back to him, jaw working in distress. “I don’t want anything _from_ you. It’s not like— _transactional,_ like, _you do this and that or I stop loving you_.”

Magnus flinched, and could tell Alec instantly regretted his phrasing, but he forged on. “Magnus, I just want you to talk to me.”

And Magnus had known that, of course, but it was always a particular blow hearing Alec say it.

He hugged himself tighter. “And what if I can’t?”

Alec blinked, like he hadn’t expected an actual answer. “Why do you—”

His phone rang.

He dug it out of his pocket, a rapid, panicked movement. “I’m gonna decline the call, this is important.”

Magnus watched as Alec swiped the call away, shifting nervously on his feet.

“You think you can’t—”

His phone started ringing again.

Alec stabbed at the screen to accept the call. “Izzy, can it wait?”

As he listened to her, his eyebrows lifted to his hairline. “I’m sorry, _what?”_

“Alec…?”

Alec was already striding over to the door to grab his bow and blades from their hook. “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

As he hung up, he turned back to Magnus, face drawn in frantic lines. “I gotta go, it’s an emergency— but we’ll talk about this later?”

Magnus certainly was _not_ looking forward to that. “I’ll be here.”

Alec wavered for a second, and then darted out the door.

Magnus let out a shaky breath, feeling like he’d just been yanked back from a precipice, the bottom of which was nothing but murky darkness. Then he shook himself and retreated to his apothecary.

An hour later, he was bottling up his potion when his phone rang. He swiped it open with a flare of magic, hands still occupied by his task.

Cat didn’t even say hello. “Aren’t you coming?”

Magnus frowned even though she couldn’t see him, banishing the bottle to the fridge for storage. “Coming where?”

A note of uncertainty slide into Cat’s voice. “To help close the rift?”

This was inspiring an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. “Cat, what are you talking about?”

“Alec didn’t tell you?”

Magnus stood up, hand clenched around his phone. He already knew he wasn’t going to like this.

“Tell me _what._ ”

Cat hesitated. “There’s a huge rift at the Met. I guess Lorenzo spotted it first, when it was still small, but it grew really fast. Alec’s bringing a team over now. He seriously didn’t tell you?”

“No,” Magnus said, tension making his jaw hurt, worry and confusion and fury sloshing around in his stomach. “No, he didn’t.”

When he portalled onto the street corner next to Cat, she said, already walking towards the museum, “You brought this on yourself, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

“If you don’t let him help you the way _you_ want, he’s going to figure out a way to do it himself, you know that.”

She raised a hand as Magnus opened his mouth to protest. “I’m not saying I’m not gonna kick his ass for lying to you next time I see him—but I do understand why he did it.”

Yes, but they had _talked_ about that. Or so Magnus had thought. They had _talked_ about his magic loss and Alec’s deal with Asmodeus, about making decisions without each other. He’d thought they had worked that out, that they were good now.

But here they were again.

“I don’t need him to coddle me,” Magnus said. “I can decide what I can handle.”

“Of course you can,” Cat said, with a particular tone in her voice. Magnus knew that tone.

“But?” he asked wearily.

“But you’ve taken on too much before,” she said. “Maybe it’s not the worst thing that someone has your back.”

“I take on what needs to be dealt with,” Magnus insisted.

They had reached the front steps of the Met.

“Let’s argue about this _after_ we seal the rift,” Cat said, and they jogged up the steps to the front door in tense silence.

The museum looked peaceful from the outside, dark and still in the night. Thankfully, it was past closing time, so there wouldn’t be many people at risk if this got out of hand.

Magnus unlocked the door with his magic and pulled it open, and they stepped into the cool, dark atrium. The vaulted ceilings made every step a cavernous echo, high windows casting long swathes of blue light across the floor. Shadows reached from the corners and the halls leading off to the galleries.

“Where’s the rift?” he asked Cat, whispering as seemed necessary in the quiet space.

“Sculpture hall,” she whispered back.

As they made their way in that direction, Magnus said, “Alec can’t know I’m here. He’ll try to send me away.”

Cat scoffed. “He can’t _make_ you leave.”

“Obviously not, but the last thing we need in an already dangerous situation is an argument.”

Cat sighed. “That’s fair enough.”

Magnus hated this. Sneaking around, hiding from Alec, lying to each other. He didn’t know when their relationship had devolved into this.

He remembered what Alec had said, in that horrible illusion: _like you aren’t already leaving me._

What if that was really how he felt?

He didn’t have time to dwell on it. As they turned the last corner to the sculpture hall, Magnus was yanked from his thoughts by a loud _crash_ and the sound of a blade skidding across the floor.

A harsh laugh echoed in the cavernous space. “Oh, how I missed playing with Nephilim.”

A chill ran down Magnus’s spine. He moved faster. “I thought you said it was a rift?”

“It was supposed to be.”

That voice was tugging at Magnus’s mind, but he couldn’t quite place it. He and Cat rushed to the entrance of the hall and peered in.

It was difficult, at first, to see what was going on. Without any lights on, the space was dark, statues casting deep lines of shadow across the floor. Several of the sculptures were upended, knocked over and in scattered pieces. Magnus cringed.

There was a seraph blade at his feet. Magnus followed its assumed path up, up, to see Jace, sprawled out on the floor by one of the shattered statues, staring at— nothing. An empty patch of air.

Or rather, Magnus thought, as he watched more closely, a _shimmering_ patch of air. A glamour.

Jace spit blood and glared up at his invisible opponent. “I banished you once. I’ll do it again.”

That same voice laughed, sounding everywhere at once. “You did banish me once, well done,” he said, in a tone like he was talking to a child, “but it won’t happen again.”

An arrow flew across the room right at the invisible being, who caught it in a flash of magic and crushed it in his metaphorical fist. He tsked. “None of that,” he said, and hurled a burst of magic at Alec—who was suddenly unglamoured and standing much closer than Magnus had thought—lifting him and throwing him clear across the room.

Alec’s body hit a statue—what looked, from a distance, like a king bent over his sword—and both toppled to the floor, the statue landing with a tremendous crash and hiding Alec from sight.

Magnus jerked forward, but Cat grabbed his arm. Jace flinched as Alec landed, but was held in place by the being he’d challenged.

“Goodbye, little Nephilim,” the being said, and hurled Jace out into the hall. Jace yelped, and there was a series of crashing sounds, like he had tumbled down several flights of stairs.

Alec had lurched to his feet and started after Jace, but stopped, hand pressed to his abdomen. Apparently reassured by whatever he felt—or didn’t feel—through the _parabatai_ bond, he turned his attention back to the creature before him.

No matter that the being was invisible, Alec looked so small before him, bow grasped in his bruised hand, ready to challenge the greatest forces of Hell to protect his city.

“Brave little angel,” the shimmering being taunted, “You think you can defeat me? You can try.”

And suddenly as Magnus watched, trying to figure out the best way to help, he finally understood what—or rather who—he was dealing with.

That was no ordinary glamour. It wasn’t just that he was invisible, warping light around himself. He was adopting the appearance of the space around him, blending, chameleon-like, into the background. Putting on a mask, as it were.

Belial.

Magnus didn’t know if Alec was alone now, or if he had backup glamoured around the room, but it didn’t matter. He had no idea what he was dealing with, and no hope of defeating this demon in one-on-one combat. Jace’s success in Lucy’s apartment had been a fluke, brought about by distraction. It wouldn’t happen again.

Belial was just playing with them.

Before Magnus could think of a plan he was picking up Jace’s seraph blade—he preferred his magic but it never hurt to have backup—and running into the gallery, ignoring Cat’s hand grabbing at his arm, her hissed _“Magnus!”_

He skidded to a stop between Belial and Alec, blade glowing crimson in his hand, eyes flashing gold. He didn’t wait for Belial to process his presence before he was hurling a fireball at him that lifted him clear off his feet and threw him into a nearby statue, the glamour dripping off him like melted wax.

Alec gasped behind him, clearly alarmed by Magnus’s appearance at this fight he’d tried so hard to hide from him. And they would be talking about that. But right now, he needed a Shadowhunter, not his husband.

“Alec,” he grit out, already sweating under the strain of holding Belial in place. “Do it. Now.”

Alec didn’t need to ask what he meant. He already had an arrow nocked and trained on Belial’s neck.

Belial laughed. “I don’t think so.”

He crooked a finger, and Alec’s hand spasmed. The bow dropped from his grip, clattering on the floor, and then Alec followed it, falling to his knees, hands clasped over his ears, eyes squeezed shut. And Magnus knew, just _knew_ , that Belial was tormenting him with one of his horrible visions, twisting his reality.

Magnus tightened his hold, but it was hard to tell if he actually had a grip on Belial or if the demon was just playing with him. “Let him go, Belial,” he said.

Behind him, Alec was whimpering, saying, _“No, Magnus, no—”_ Izzy had appeared from somewhere—unglamoured herself—and was crouched by his side, half over him, whip unfurled in her hand.

Magnus clenched his magic around Belial’s throat and _squeezed._ “Let him _go._ ”

Belial laughed. “Such _anger._ ” His voice sounded gratifyingly strained. “It’s fun to watch you give in to your baser nature. Go on. Crush my throat. See if it’ll make you feel better.”

Magnus held onto him, but didn’t tighten his hold, unwilling to cave to the demon’s taunts.

Belial’s gaze wandered to Alec. “Such a cute pet angel. It’s too bad he has to suffer so.” He affected a thoughtful demeanor. “The question is, if you kill me, will that free him from the glorious visions I’ve spun? Or will it trap him in them eternally?”

Magnus didn’t know the answer to that question. He hesitated. Then Cat was striding over to him, determination in her eyes, apparently having figured out a more coherent plan than Magnus’s _jump into the melee and hope for the best_ idea.

“Hold him,” she ordered Magnus, and then she was throwing up a magical shield between them and Alec.

Alec gasped as the illusion broke, and staggered to his feet, tears streaming down his face. _“Magnus.”_

“Hello, darling,” Magnus said, eyes still trained on Belial. “Decided to go on a little rift-sealing adventure without me?”

When he had a Greater Demon—tentatively—by the throat was not the time for pettiness or marital bickering, but that had never stopped Magnus before.

“I think you’ve had enough adventures for one month,” Alec said, regaining his composure, “you deserved a break.”

“It’s not a break if you’re out here being thrown around the sculpture hall of the Met. Just _how many_ irreplaceable masterpieces have you destroyed?”

“The only irreplaceable masterpiece I care about is you.”

“Boys!” Cat snapped. “We’re kind of in the middle of something.”

Belial was watching them banter with mounting glee. “Oh, no, please go on. This is better than _Jersey Shore_.”

Magnus was almost distracted by wondering how he knew what _Jersey Shore_ was. Did he just happen to be on earth in 2009? Was there TV in Hell?

_Focus, goddammit!_

Belial crossed his arms. “I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you, Magnus. I would have thought my little game the other day would have scared you away.”

“Game?”

Belial cocked his head, and grinned. “Eros thanks you for your sacrifice.”

Magnus’s grip slipped.

Belial shattered what remained of Magnus’s hold on him and strode forward, gaze flickering with playful fire—

But it didn’t matter, because Alec was instantly beside Magnus, arrow loosed before Magnus could even see him draw. He held his bow in position far longer than needed, muscles quivering, fury in the tense lines of his face as he looked at Belial.

Belial stared at the arrow protruding from his throat.

_Could it really be that easy?_

But the look on Belial’s face wasn’t alarm, or disappointment. His lips quirked up like he was pleased. “Brave little angel,” he sang as he stepped forward, his progress inevitable, ripping the arrow out of his neck. _“Stupid_ little angel.”

Alec held his ground. Magnus raised a hand to bind Belial, throw fireballs at him, do _something_ — but before he could even think the command he was smashing against the wall on the far side of the hall and sliding to the floor, dazed, everything spinning around him.

Belial grinned at him.

And all hell broke loose.

Belial raised his hands and demons soared in from other parts of the building, screeching, claws already extended for the Shadowhunters.

Alec and Izzy leapt into action, their training kicking in instinctively, slashing and firing at the demons. Cat followed them, hurling blue fireballs.

Magnus dragged himself to his feet, letting his balance return. He’d managed to hold onto the seraph blade for most of his unwitting journey across the gallery, and went to pick it up where it had fallen. It flared red in his hand.

Jace skidded back into the room, looking battered and bruised but not seriously injured, and Belial’s attention turned to him. Being without one of his blades didn’t stop Jace from charging Belial, and the demon, apparently craving some hand to hand combat, manifested his own sword into his hand, meeting Jace in a clang of steel.

This was an opportunity. Belial was distracted. Magnus strode forward, walking and then running, the blade clasped in his hand.

Jace saw him coming, and darted forward to jab at Belial’s torso, keeping his focus.

Magnus ran, leapt, and plunged the blade down towards Belial’s spine, infusing its angelic power with his own magic.

Belial spun at the last second, eyes flashing black, and raised his blade to meet Magnus’s.

A sonic boom exploded across the hall as their blades clashed. Power flared outward, vaporizing statuary, sending Magnus and Belial careening to opposite ends of the gallery.

“Magnus!” Alec yelled from somewhere far off.

Magnus dragged himself back to his feet, exhaustion already tugging at him from the expense of power, feeling the remnants of the magic trickling across his skin.

Everyone else had been knocked to the ground, too, but leapt up as the winged demons continued their dive-bomb attacks.

Magnus and Cat darted for Belial while he was down, pouring their remaining magic into holding him in place.

“Enough,” Magnus said, “you have no business being in this realm. Leave.”

“On the contrary,” the demon said, “I have lots of unfinished business here.”

“If your goal is to torment me, fear not. Your mere presence is already ruining my day.” 

Belial rolled his eyes. “You have an inflated sense of your own self-importance. I have only _one_ goal here today.”

Skittering footsteps echoed at the entrance to the sculpture hall, and Lorenzo appeared, out of breath. “The building’s clear,” he said, “all the security guards are out—” he took in the chaos. “Oh… my.”

Belial’s head turned, an inhuman, mechanical movement, and, with eerie timing, his gaze landed unerringly on Lorenzo.

“Hello, my son,” the demon said. “It’s been awhile.” 

Lorenzo blanched and took a few nervous steps back. “Now, wait a minute—”

Magnus yanked on Belial’s restraints, drawing the demon’s attention back to him. “Leave him alone.”

Belial’s gaze flitted over him, bored and amused. “He a friend of yours?”

“Hardly. But you won’t be tormenting any Warlocks on my watch.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not up to you.” Belial ripped through his and Cat’s magic like it was tissue paper and stood. “He is my son. He belongs to _me._ ”

Cat tugged at Magnus’s arm, hissed in his ear, something like, _let’s go,_ clearly having more sense than Magnus, or having seen something dark and unstoppable in the demon’s shining eyes.

Magnus stared Belial down, golden eyes on full display, power rippling up his arms. “No, he doesn’t.”

The demon took a step forward. “You should know better than most, Magnus. You had a close relationship with your own father.”

Fear was starting to trickle up from Magnus’s stomach, but he wouldn’t let Belial see it. Instead, he sighed dramatically. “If only. Really, he was a rather absent dad. Always focused on work. He never even taught me how to ride a bike, can you believe it?”

Belial took another step closer. The Shadowhunters had finished off the demons, and were still, watching this play out. Magnus could see Alec inching closer out of the corner of his eye. “You learned to use each other’s power,” Belial insisted.

Magnus laughed sharply. “I’m not interested in using my father’s power.”

Belial chuckled, a sound somewhere between fondness and pity. “Oh, Magnus. You’re doing it right now.”

Red flames were crawling up Magnus’s arms, his eyes blazed, he could feel the power thrumming out of him. And he knew Belial was right.

Slipping so easily into his father’s gestures made him nauseous, but now wasn’t the time for second-guessing. Magnus doubled down on the Edomic energy vibrating in his veins, letting it flare out of him.

“Then let’s see what the might of Asmodeus can do against the likes of you,” he said, and attacked.

Belial was right there to meet him, and as their magic clashed, he looked like he was _grinning,_ loving every second of it. “You’ve been holding back on me,” he said. “I see now why Asmodeus was so insistent on keeping you.”

“There was nothing to _keep_ ,” Magnus snarled. “I was never _his_.”

“No, you weren’t, were you?” Belial agreed easily, like he was realizing something. It threw Magnus, but not enough to make him drop his assault.

“You’re much more than just Asmodeus’s spawn,” the demon continued. “You’re powerful in your own right. I don’t think Asmodeus understood that. You see, he thought your dalliances with the Nephilim were making you weak.” His gaze darted to Alec, who, in his slow approach, had nearly reached Magnus. “But it’s rather the opposite, isn’t it? You have that little angel right in your clutches.” His smile was sharp and gleeful, his eyes flat. “Good work.”

Something heavy and cold dropped into Magnus’s stomach. He couldn’t help but glance at Alec, who was looking at him with a shocked and worried expression that Magnus couldn’t interpret. Alec shook his head violently at whatever he saw in Magnus’s gaze.

The patter of retreating footsteps broke them out of their silent dialogue. Magnus turned in time to see Lorenzo sprint out of the gallery.

Belial dropped his attack on Magnus, sending Magnus lurching forward as the pressure against him suddenly abated, and chased after Lorenzo.

Magnus chased after Belial.

“Magnus!” Alec yelled, and then he was hot on his heels, Magnus could feel him, but he didn’t look back. He knew better than to believe anything Belial told him, but the words were fluttering in his heart anyway. _You have him in your clutches._ Wasn’t it true, in a way? It seemed that Magnus just kept hurting him, more and more with each passing week. How much more would Alec take?

He slid into the next wing, where Belial had Lorenzo up against a wall, magic tight around his throat.

“My _son_ ,” the demon purred.

“Get off!” Lorenzo yelped.

Magnus skidded to a stop and hurled a blast of magic at him.

Belial raised a finger as if in admonishment, and the magic flared away, twisted, slammed into a massive Monet painting covering an entire wall.

Magnus flinched. He owed the Met an unbelievable anonymous donation after this.

The painting shuddered, and then water was gushing out of it, reeds and lily pads flooding the gallery, flowers multiplying everywhere, leaving an empty canvas behind.

Magnus gaped at the sight.

The others finally caught up, splashing into the hall. “What the fuck!” Jace yelled.

What the fuck, indeed.

“Magnus, what’s the plan?” Izzy asked, at the same time as Alec said, “Is your magic okay?”

“That was Belial’s doing,” Magnus told Alec. “And to answer your question, Isabelle… I have no idea.”

Belial still had Lorenzo in his grasp, whispering something in his ear. But Lorenzo’s fate wasn’t Magnus’s greatest concern. They couldn’t let Belial leave the building and terrorize New York. This had to end here.

“Look there,” Alec said, pointing.

Magnus followed his gaze to a painting on the far wall, right above Belial’s head. On the canvas, a hard-lined avenging angel plunged from the sky to impale a demon he had pressed under his foot. Magnus knew immediately what Alec was suggesting.

“Alexander,” he admonished, “that’s a _Raphael_.”

“Yeah, will it work?”

Magnus sighed. “Possibly. Oh, this is a new low even for me.”

“Care to clue us in to your grand plan?” Cat said.

“Just the greatest artistic crime of the past century,” Magnus said. Alec rolled his eyes.

Cat’s eyes flicked to the painting, and she nodded as she understood. “I’m sure the art world will forgive you when you save the city from being violently demon-murdered,” she said dryly.

Magnus groaned, already mourning, but held out his hand to Alec. “I could use your help, darling.”

Alec took his hand, eyes shining, and Magnus felt Alec’s energy surge through him, intermingling with his own power. “Anything. _Everything_ you need. You know that.”

Magnus swallowed thickly, tugging on Alec’s energy, gathering power in his hands.

“Be ready for Belial’s retaliation,” Alec said to the others.

Once again, Magnus hurled power at Belial. Once again, Belial deflected it. But this time, Magnus directed the power _up._

The fireball skidded into the _Raphael_ painting _._ For a moment, nothing happened. Then angelic light flared out of the canvas, cascading over Belial and Lorenzo.

Belial shrieked and stumbled away, covering his eyes. He spun and staggered as holy light continued to pour from the painting, flooding the room, blinding all of them.

Then it was over. The light flickered out, a final burst searing up the canvas, burning it all to ash.

One by one, they uncovered their eyes.

“Is it over?” Izzy asked, at the same time as Jace said, “I was kind of hoping we were gonna get an actual angel.”

“Help me kill him!” Lorenzo yelled from the other end of the room.

He had apparently summoned his courage and had a wounded Belial by the throat, his yellow magic throttling him.

Belial’s skin was burned and peeling, raw all over, but his eyes were furious and hard as ever. 

“Magnus!” he yelled, “this didn’t have to be between us. I have no real quarrel with you. But your actions have changed that.”

He stood up, pushing Lorenzo off, limping inexorably forward. Magnus summoned his waning magic—

And Alec jumped in front of him, bow already raised, and fired.

The arrow embedded itself in Belial’s heart. He looked down at it with a raised eyebrow.

“Interesting,” he said, appraising Alec. “You’re a loyal one, aren’t you?”

Then, before Magnus could even blink, he’d shoved all of them aside with a wave of magic and grabbed Alec by the throat. He slammed him up against the wall.

Alec choked in his grip, hands clawing at Belial’s, legs spasming.

Magnus didn’t dare to breathe.

Belial looked down at Alec’s hand, took it in his own. He considered the ring gleaming on Alec’s finger. “Oh, Magnus,” he tutted, “You should know better. You can’t keep an angel in a cage. He needs to be free, spread his wings.” He turned to look at Magnus, false pity in his eyes. “He’ll grow restless eventually. It doesn’t matter how you pamper him. Wild animals shouldn’t be kept as pets.”

Magnus’s heart panged at his words, no matter how he tried to block them out.

Belial’s gaze swung back to Alec. “And you. You think he _loves_ you? You think you can entertain a prince of hell for more than a few years? He’ll grow tired of his plaything soon enough.” His head tilted as he read whatever was in Alec’s eyes. “Or perhaps it’s happening already? Very interesting.”

_What? Was that what Alec thought?_

Magnus’s heart hammered in his chest, each beat a new surge of pain. He was _losing him_ , wasn’t he? He was already _losing him._ He was driving Alec away.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t _move._ He felt like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

The whole room seemed frozen around him, no one sure how to help Alec without inadvertently hurting him. Magnus watched as Belial’s grip clenched tighter around his husband’s throat, watched through blurring vision as Alec gasped for breath, listened through a thousand feet of water as Belial said, “Perhaps I should take your _toy_ instead. He seems so _fun_ to play with.”

“Enough,” Magnus whispered.

Tears were streaming down his face, and he didn’t know where they were coming from. Certainly not just from the stress of this particular situation. These felt like weeks, months, _eons_ of tears, a deep, visceral pain that was a part of his very soul. Open wounds.

Alec was right. He had been through a lot this past month. He had— he had been through a _lot_ , in general.

Magnus had been through a lot, but no more. Belial was _not_ going to take his _fucking_ husband away from him.

“Enough!” Magnus shouted.

Belial flinched and turned to him, which gave Alec the opening he needed to draw up a leg and kick him in the chest.

Belial fell away from him with an _oof_ , and then Magnus was on him, blazing with anger and hurt, magic seeping out of his skin.

“There you go,” Belial taunted, but he was backing away, something nervous flickering in his eyes, “ _there’s_ that demonic power, harness it, there you go—”

Magnus stopped in front of him.

And everything

slowed 

to a

stop.

Belial’s mirrored eyes stilled; Cat, Lorenzo, and the Shadowhunters froze, barely breathing; behind Magnus, Alec paused in the middle of running for him, panic written across his face, screaming _Magnus!_

But Magnus couldn’t hear him. All was silent.

He knew what he had to do to banish Belial. He had the key, beating in his very heart, a gift from the creature of the void, slipped down his throat with that oily darkness. He could see the fountain, could feel it, that warm dark around him, that peace and nothingness, the all-seeing eye of the creature.

He had the key. He had always had it.

He would fix them. He would prove to Alec that he wasn’t trying to leave, that he wanted him, wanted to _stay_. If it was the last thing he did.

Magnus pressed his palm flat to his heart, felt a pulse of warmth, and a moment later, the key materialized in his hand. He looked down at it.

A snowdrop bud was resting in his palm, its petals just beginning to crack open. Magnus stared at the white flower for a long moment, at its thin, silken petals, bruised, already, by his touch.

Then he crushed it in his hand, and said, “Open.”

The void burst into existence between him and Belial, throwing a crackle of energy across the gallery. Magnus couldn’t see it open; one moment it wasn’t there, the next, it had always been there.

He stared into a darkness so deep and absolute that it hurt his eyes. Far in the distance were shimmers that he thought, if he focused hard enough, might resolve into other realms. But his eyes really wanted to slide over them, so he let it be.

Magnus touched the shimmering edge of the doorway, relishing in the wild magic that coursed through his fingertips and into his bloodstream. It wouldn’t stay, merely ran in one finger, through his body, then out another, but it felt so good, dangerous and _alive_.

Something Magnus was struggling to feel, right now.

He could lose himself to it, this magic. One step and he would pass right through the doorway and into the gap between worlds, where magic flowed in the air like nitrogen. No one had ever been there. What would he see? What would he _learn?_

Would he even be missed, here?

Alec’s cracked voice echoed in his mind. _You told me to hold onto you._

_I did,_ Magnus thought, _I did._

_But I didn’t let you, did I?_

He had slipped right out of Alec’s grip, somehow, without even noticing, and he was floundering in that dark water, desperate for someone to pull him up.

_Reach for me,_ Magnus thought, desperate. _D_ _on’t give up on me. Please. Please, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I—_

The creature appeared before him, its tendrils wrapping around the edges of the doorway. “You can’t be here,” Magnus told it.

He didn’t expect a response, and jumped when he felt a _presence_ in his mind. The creature didn’t use words, precisely, or have a voice. It merely wished for him to know something, and he did.

It wasn’t here to climb into his world. It was only here for him.

“Why?” Magnus asked, frightened, trying to take a step back and finding himself unable to.

He saw a vision of a future: no pain, no heartache, only magic and energy coursing through his veins. All of the world at his fingertips, and none of it.

That was what it meant to become part of the void.

Magnus swallowed. The vision terrified him, especially in how much it allured a part of his heart. The part that couldn’t take one more hurt.

But as he contemplated the creature’s offer, he realized with a start that he didn’t _want_ this— this _nothingness_. That was the easy way out, and Magnus had never been one for the easy option.

“No,” Magnus told the creature.

Pain rose up in him all at once: the terror of losing control when Belial changed the world around him, of fearing he might die in those shimmering hands; the beautiful unknown of the void, and the flaying eyes of its creature; falling into the past, old friends’ violent ends, and his own greatest losses; worst of all, almost losing Alec, watching Alec carve out his own heart for him because he wasn’t enough, he _wasn’t enough—_

The creature seemed to be asking, _are you sure?_

But Magnus was surer than ever.

“I don’t want that,” he said.

His chest hurt like it was caving in, it was hard to breathe, tears were pricking at the corners of his eyes. He was losing control.

But he didn’t want nothingness. He wanted _his husband._

He wanted Alec.

“Alexander,” he gasped.

A tear ripped through the stillness holding everything in place, throwing the room back into sudden motion. Magnus didn’t know who had released them, certainly not him, nor the creature—

With a feral shriek, Belial lashed out and wrapped his magic around Magnus’s wrist.

As Magnus had intended, the doorway was pulling Belial towards it. But now it was taking Magnus, too.

Belial yanked on the magic and pulled Magnus forward. Magnus threw up a shield, but it was too late, he was too close to the doorway—he threw up a hand to brace himself and—

His palm pressed flat against the creature.

It was like nothing he’d ever felt. Like holding light, if it were possible. He knew what it knew, which was _everything_ , and it was too much, it was way too much for his brain to handle—a headache pounded at his temples, he shut his eyes against the flood—his nose was bleeding, and his mouth, his ears—his _hand_ hurt—

He forced his eyes open in time to witness zigzags of light running up his arm—he felt like he was disintegrating, being unmade at a molecular level, the light picking him apart and absorbing him back into the energy stream.

He couldn’t move, could barely breathe, he was powerless to stop it, could only watch as the cracks grew up his arm and spread to his shoulder, to his neck, his chest—he felt disembodied, separate from the pain which must be excruciating, all he could think as blinding light exploded behind his eyes was—

_Alexander. Please, I want my husband._

A hand latched onto his wrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> decided to split the long-as-heck final chapter in two for easier reading. but i'm posting them together so you won't be left on a cliffhanger!
> 
> Artworks destroyed in this chapter:  
> [Water Lilies, Claude Monet](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438008)  
> [St. Michael Vanquishing Satan, Raphael](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Michael_Vanquishing_Satan#/media/File:Le_Grand_Saint_Michel,_by_Raffaello_Sanzio,_from_C2RMF_retouched.jpg)  
> (this one’s actually at the Louvre, not the Met)


	6. transcendence - part 2

**transcendence - part 2**

He knew nothing, not even his own name. Everything was brightness. Voices echoed, and he didn’t know if they were real or if he had made them up.

_“…please, please help him…”_

_“…I’m doing everything I can…”_

Someone was pouring magic into him. Magic. He still understood what that was, even if he didn’t know what it _meant._ A familiar warm energy twined with the magic, comforted him, knit him back together.

He was moving. There were arms around him, and a familiar scent in his nostrils, and he felt very warm and safe, despite everything. Cocooned from whatever terrible horror had broken his brain and put him in this place.

 _“Easy,”_ a voice was saying, _“easy. I got you.”_

Distantly, he was aware he was whimpering. But that sound, that feeling was disconnected from him. Someone else’s pain, not his.

The brightness receded. Magnus woke, and everything _hurt._

His skin felt flayed, his muscles and organs screamed like he had been turned inside out, his head was _pounding_ , each pulse forcing him to curl in, and in, and in until he was holding himself in a ball, making himself as small as possible, shielding his head from whatever was hurting him.

Magnus whined, lost in the agony, swimming in it, barely aware of the sound he made, the sheets under him, the wall of heat at his back that suddenly moved to curl further around him, the hand that caressed his cheek.

“Shhh, easy. It’s okay. It’s okay, I got you.”

The hum of his voice made a beacon through the pain, and Magnus turned toward it, pressing himself into the warmth of his body. His touch burned Magnus’s abused skin and he leaned into it anyway, needing _anything_ , any sense of clarity, of place, of future relief.

Words were lost to him, he couldn’t speak, could barely _think_ , and panic rose up in him, strong enough to cut through the pain and he was shaking, burying his face in the hollow of the other man’s throat, panting for breath.

Hands tangled in his hair, and Magnus wanted to sob from the conflicting comfort and pain signals he was getting, and then did.

“Whoa, breathe. Breathe, Magnus, _please_ —” the voice was wobbly now, Magnus could feel it rumbling under his nose “—is that— Cat? Oh, thank the Angel.”

Magnus was mumbling something into his throat, lips dragging on skin, something that sounded borderline incoherent to his own ears, occasionally congealing into words: “—lec, A–lec, p–please, _Al_ – _exander_ , hel— _help_ , _Alec_ —”

He clawed at the sheets, movements jerky and uncoordinated, needing to move, to get _up_ , to get _away_ , to fight, to not be so damn _needy_ , so _helpless_.

A cool hand pressed against his forehead, and then calming darkness rose around him and he didn’t need anything at all.

When he woke again, it was to golden sheets, and an empty bed, and for the first time in what felt like ages, he knew where he was. Magnus shot upright, regretting it immediately as residual pain zigzagged all through his body, like the aftermath of an electric shock.

He clenched his eyes shut, though it was nearly pitch black in the bedroom. Everything flooded back to him at once—Belial, the void, the temptation, the _brightness_ , the searing pain, _Alec—_

Alec.

“Alec!” Magnus yelled. Shouldn’t he be here? Where was he? Had Belial gotten him?

 _“Alexander!”_ Magnus yelled again, hurting his own ears but not caring because he was _panicking—_

The water running in the bathroom—which Magnus might have noticed if he hadn’t been out of his mind with lingering pain and fear—squeaked off. The door swung open, and Alec stumbled out, a towel held loosely around his waist.

“I take two minutes to shower and you choose then to wake up,” Alec said, panting, watching him with wide eyes.

Magnus took him in. The suds still in his hair, the bruises littering his body, the dark circles under his eyes. He looked absolutely exhausted, emotionally ruined. Just seeing him was a balm to Magnus’s fractured soul.

“You don’t have to cover up for me, darling,” he said weakly. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Alec stared at him, and then he started laughing, leaning against the doorframe. Halfway through, the laugh turned slightly hysterical, a hint of a sob in it.

He started for Magnus, but stopped just short of touching him, like he wasn’t sure he was welcome. Magnus hated that he had made him feel that way.

He beckoned him forward, and Alec took his hand, all but collapsing to his knees beside the bed. Magnus shifted so his legs were dangling over the edge of the mattress, and he could pull Alec between them, tucking Alec’s forehead to his belly.

Alec’s hands went to his hips, holding him close almost bruisingly, and then he was crying, pressing into Magnus’s skin. Magnus shushed him, stroking his still-wet hair, his back, his arms, anything he could reach.

Magnus’s throat felt tight, every part of him made fragile and bruised by Alec’s tears. Tears caused by him, by almost losing _him._

They stayed like that, loosely entwined, for a long time. Magnus had missed this, missed just—holding him. He didn’t know how he had let that slip away.

Finally, Alec pulled away, sniffling, swiping at his eyes. He stood up, tying the towel back around his waist. “Mom brought over some soup,” he said, wavering, hesitant. “You should eat some, you haven’t eaten in four days. I’ll just— I’ll get it.”

Then he was gone, headed for the kitchen. Magnus took stock of himself. All in all, he seemed remarkably unharmed. There wasn’t even a scar on his body to mark his ordeal with Belial and the void creature, which made him feel—strange. Disoriented. He also felt unkempt, his hair a bird’s nest, but that could be easily solved with a shower.

He stood up from the bed, swayed a little and had to grab the nightstand for balance. He was only wearing boxers and a t-shirt—Alec’s, he was pretty sure—and as a gust of cool air brushed by him, he snagged the sweater Alec had thrown over the chair in the corner.

The sweater was warm and smelled like Alec. Magnus sighed, relishing in it, as he joined Alec in the kitchen.

 _“Magnus,”_ Alec admonished him, “you’re supposed to be in bed.”

“I haven’t used my muscles in four days,” Magnus said, and he could feel the soreness of them as he said it. “They were going to atrophy if I stayed still any longer.”

Alec sighed, but just placed a bowl of soup in front of Magnus on the counter. “Alright, fine, just—eat that?”

Magnus obediently took the spoon Alec handed him and started sipping at the soup. “What _happened?”_ he asked. “Did you banish Belial?” He didn’t think things would be so calm if they hadn’t, but he had to be sure.

“ _You_ did,” Alec said. “That portal you opened swallowed him right up. But it—” he blew out a harsh breath. “It almost got you, too. Magnus, you were _burning._ I yanked you out of the way, but it— it was almost too late. You weren’t moving. You were barely _breathing_.”

Magnus hummed. He remembered Alec grabbing onto him.

Wait.

“You touched me?” Magnus demanded, reaching for Alec’s hands. “Were you hurt?”

“I—”

Magnus turned over Alec’s right palm and sucked in a breath. Dread pooled in his stomach.

Alec’s palm was crisscrossed by white lines, like flat scars, jagged reminders of the bursts of energy that had shot up Magnus’s arm and into his body.

Magnus touched the lines gingerly. “Does it hurt? Alec, _does it hurt?_ ”

“No! No, they’re just—scars, I guess. Cat says they might fade after some time. Or not, we’ll have to see.”

“Alexander—”

Alec twisted his hand so he could entwine it with Magnus’s. “I’d do it all over again to pull you out of there. I wasn’t going to let that thing get you.”

Magnus couldn’t stop thinking about the scars. “I’m going to get one of the Elders from the Spiral Labyrinth to take a look at you. Coming into contact with that much power…” he let out a shaky breath. He didn’t _know_ what it would do to Alec. “It’s dangerous.”

“I mean, Cat already examined me. But if it’ll make you feel better.”

“So what— what happened after that?” Magnus forged on, keeping hold of Alec’s hand.

“Well, you—were unconscious. We couldn’t move you until you were stabilized. So Cat and Lorenzo—”

_“Lorenzo?”_

Alec cringed. “I know, I’m sorry, I know the last thing you want is his magic touching you again, but Cat didn’t have enough power on her own, and there wasn’t time to call anyone—”

“You’re not wrong, but what I actually meant was, I’m surprised he agreed to help.”

Alec looked at him then, steel in his gaze. “It was made very clear that he didn’t have a choice.” The simple words conveyed an immovable force, and warmth bloomed in Magnus’s chest. “Magnus, you _saved him_ from _Belial._ I think Cat was ready to burn him where he stood if he so much as looked at you the wrong way.”

Magnus hummed, vaguely satisfied by the image. “Just Cat?” he teased.

Alec avoided his gaze, rubbing at the back of his neck, a hint of a bashful smile tugging at his lips. “We healed you as best we could,” he continued, choosing not to address Magnus’s comment. “That is, Izzy and Jace and I leant our strength to Cat and Lorenzo so they could heal you. Fortunately, it was enough that we were able to get you back here.”

Alec shook his head, looking off somewhere in the distance, lost in the memory. “Cat said she’d never seen anything like it. You were _disintegrating,_ I still don’t understand—”

He jerked back to himself and fixed Magnus with a startled expression. “I should have asked, I forgot to ask. Is your magic okay?”

Magnus could feel it, warm and electric in his veins, and knew that it was. But still, he held up a palm before Alec’s eyes and let a blue flame dance on his skin.

“Nothing to worry about,” he assured him.

Alec’s expression softened. “Good.” He took Magnus’s hand again, and Magnus let the flame tickle Alec’s skin for a moment before snuffing it out.

Alec’s phone buzzed on the countertop, and he swiped it open to see the message. “I told Cat you’re awake, she wants to come by and check on you. Is that okay?”

Magnus nodded.

“She’ll be over in five.” Alec placed the phone back down, spinning in place, looking a little harried, and Magnus realized he probably had barely slept in the four days Magnus had been out. “I should go put on some actual clothes. Um, I made you some tea, it’s there—and you should finish the soup.”

Magnus watched fondly as Alec darted out of the room. He sipped at the tea Alec had made.

Slowly, unsteadiness was trickling in to replace the warm peace he’d temporarily found. Something was looming at the edge of his awareness—a memory, a feeling of their encounter with Belial—but he resolutely pushed it away. He deserved this moment of calm in the wake of disaster. The waves would come crashing in soon enough.

When Alec returned, he was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt out of deference to their guest. Magnus didn’t bother putting on pants over his boxers. Cat had—to both of their great chagrin—seen him naked before. That was just what happened when you were friends with someone for centuries and you had a penchant for trouble.

Besides, Alec’s sweater was long enough that it covered his ass. It was good enough.

“Well, don’t get dressed up on my account,” Cat said, first thing, when she portalled into their kitchen.

“What, no ‘hello’?” Magnus gasped, faux-offended, a hand splayed dramatically across his chest. “No ‘I’m so glad you’ve crawled back from the brink of death’?”

“No ‘thanks for saving my ass for the ninetieth time’?” Cat quipped back, but then she was pulling him into a hug, squeezing him tight.

When she pulled away, she held him at arm’s length, looking him over. “How are you feeling?”

“Better than I ought, considering Alexander tells me I was ‘disintegrating.’”

Cat frowned. “That’s not an answer.” She pressed her fingertips to his forehead, humming a little in concentration as she probed him for remaining injuries. Magnus felt her magic zing through him.

“I don’t sense any damage,” she finally said, pulling away. The tight expression on her face eased a little.

“See?” Magnus said, turning to take the mug of tea that Alec was nudging at his elbow. “Right as rain.”

Cat rolled her eyes.

“He’s really okay?” Alec asked, placing another mug in front of Cat.

She nodded to him in thanks and picked it up, sipping at the tea. “Miraculously, yes. I believe so. There may be some lingering effects for a few days. Aftershocks, if you will. But I couldn’t detect any permanent damage.” She cast a stern look on Magnus. “But you have to _rest._ ”

“Trust me, my dear, I will _not_ be leaving my apartment for anyone. I’ve dealt with enough catastrophes this month. People can take their woes elsewhere, I’m taking a vacation.”

Cat nodded firmly. “Good.” She took another sip of her tea. “I’ve been thinking about that doorway you opened. Were you ever able to find out anything about it from the Spiral Labyrinth?”

“I spoke to the Elders briefly after the first incident,” Magnus said. “There are a few records of Warlocks coming into contact with such a thing, but not much detail.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Cat said quietly, “if the majority of the Warlocks who’ve come into contact with it didn’t live to tell the tale.”

Alec laid a hand on Magnus’s arm. Magnus wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to comfort.

“I should chew you out for even attempting such a thing,” Cat said, “but I’m just too fucking relieved you’re alive to be angry.”

“For my own safety, I’m glad,” Magnus said. “Your wrath is truly terrifying.”

Cat made a choked sort of sound, and then she was dropping her mug on the counter and flinging her arms around him again, crushing him against her. Magnus’s tea spilled as he banished it to the countertop, but he didn’t mind, just held her tightly.

When Cat had gone, having made them both promise to call her immediately if anything happened, Alec turned back to Magnus, looking completely exhausted. “You should get some more rest,” he said.

Magnus ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “I think I ought to take a bath first.”

“Oh. Right. Um, I’ll make some more tea while you’re in there.”

“Okay.” Magnus ambled toward the bedroom door, feeling a little unsteady on his feet. He felt bereft, he wanted… _something_.

He turned back to Alec. His husband was standing at the stove, his back to him, putting the kettle on.

_Oh._

Magnus sucked in a breath, every part of him fluttering with irrational nerves. God, why was he like this? It was just _Alec._ “Will you come with me?” he managed to ask.

Alec spun to face him, mouth dropping open in surprise. “Oh,” he said. Then he smiled, a little hesitant, but genuine. “God, yes. Of course.”

They made their slow way to the bathroom. Magnus really wanted to collapse face first onto the bed, but his disgust with the state of his hair won out.

Alec turned on the tap as Magnus undressed. His legs wobbled as he pulled off his boxers. He had felt reasonably steady when he first woke up, but exhaustion was rapidly catching up with him.

Alec caught him swaying and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “Whoa. Maybe you should just go to sleep.”

“I look and feel like I was just trampled into the floor of Pandemonium,” Magnus complained. “I will lose my mind if I don’t get a bath right _now._ ”

The corners of Alec’s lips twitched up. “Okay. At least let me help you in.”

Magnus allowed himself to brace on Alec’s shoulder as he stepped into the tub, touching the water gingerly, expecting it to burn.

He needn’t have worried. Alec had diligently made sure it was the perfect temperature, as he always did.

Magnus sank down into the water with a sigh, feeling the frissons of remaining energy dissipate from his sore muscles as the warmth enveloped him. It felt _so_ good. He felt like maybe he had been cold for a long time, and had been desperately craving this warmth.

Alec slid in behind him and tugged Magnus to his chest. His skin was hot against Magnus’s back, and it was perfect, the cocoon of warmth that he made.

Magnus tilted his head back against Alec’s shoulder, tucking his nose under his jaw. Alec’s arms wrapped around his middle, and he just held him for a long moment.

Magnus breathed. In, and out. Eyes closed, feeling the water, the stretch of his muscles, Alec’s arms shifting against his ribs as his lungs expanded, Alec’s breath ghosting over his lips.

In, and out.

Finally, Alec said, “Will you let me wash your hair?”

“Just a second.” Magnus breathed against him. “I want to feel you.”

He could _feel_ Alec smiling, could hear the snarky reply forming: _Is this_ Magnus Bane _leaving an innuendo on the table?_

“Not a word,” he warned Alec. “I can’t believe how I’ve corrupted you.”

“I didn’t even say anything!” Alec protested.

“You were thinking it very loudly.”

Alec abandoned his goal of tackling Magnus’s hair in favor of running his broad palms down Magnus’s ribcage, ducking into the divots of his hips, sweeping out over his thighs. Not initiating anything, just touching.

Under less fraught circumstances, Magnus would have nudged things in _that_ direction, but right now he was content just to have Alec’s hands on him, his gentle and unintentioned touch. Alec’s thumbs swept along his inner thighs, and the touch shivered out Magnus’s remaining tension, leaving him skirting the edge of pleasure, relaxed and languid in Alec’s grasp.

He had missed being held by him, missed his adoring touch.

Magnus leaned forward, tilting his head away from Alec’s shoulder so Alec could reach his hair. And then Alec was rubbing shampoo into his scalp, fingers running carefully through the tangled strands, and Magnus leaned into his hands with a sigh.

“I missed this,” Alec said quietly against the back of his neck.

Magnus tensed. “I’m sor—”

“No, don’t,” Alec cut him off. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just—” he blew out a breath. “I missed being able to hold you.”

Magnus could sense the questions fluttering in Alec’s chest, his confusion and concern. He wanted to say something that would explain his actions over the past month, assuage Alec’s distress, but what came out instead was, “When I opened that doorway, and I saw that strange void-creature again, it showed me… so much. The entire universe, boundless wild magic. It was offering… _transcendence_. Power that strong, it burns everything human out of you, you understand. What’s left behind is just _knowledge._ Endless knowledge and emptiness. No emotion, no pain, nothing.”

When he left it at that for a long moment, Alec spoke, his voice barely a breath. His fingers had stilled where they were working conditioner into Magnus’s hair. “So what happened?”

It was too difficult to say, held by Alec as he was, pinned by the bright overhead lights in the bathroom. Magnus turned them off with a flicker of magic, instantly reassured by the familiar embrace of the darkness.

“Magnus?”

Alec deserved the truth, but the temptation to slide away from this feeling that still terrified him was too great.

“It’s nothing,” Magnus said.

“You don’t have to lie to me about how you feel,” Alec said adamantly. “I never want you to lie to me about how you feel.”

Alec’s legs shifted around him as he tightened his hold. His calloused palms stroked up and down Magnus’s arms. Magnus could tell Alec was listening even more intently than he usually did, practically begging—without any words—for Magnus to just _speak._

Magnus let out a long, shuddering breath, pressing his eyes shut tight. “When that doorway was opened to me, I— well. I kind of wanted to go.”

Alec moved so fast he sloshed half a gallon of water over the side of the tub. Magnus felt gentle hands along his jawline, which meant Alec had somehow gotten _in front of him_. Whether that was Shadowhunter grace, or Magnus was just more out of it than he’d thought, he didn’t know.

“Look at me, please.” Alec’s voice was even, carefully measured.

Magnus opened his eyes.

Alec’s gaze flickered over him, studying him in the meager light slipping around the doorframe. Magnus didn’t know what he was looking for, or if he found it.

Magnus was prepared for questions, for Alec to demand to know if he was still thinking that way, if he was planning on hurting himself, why he hadn’t talked to him about whatever pain had been so immense that he’d contemplated just burning the hurt right out.

But all Alec said, quiet and tremulous, was, “Why didn’t you?”

Magnus looked at him. At the planes of his face, soft in the darkness. At his slim, careful fingers, still holding his jaw. At his mouth, pressed thin in worry. At his eyes, shining bright and liquid and afraid. The tender concern radiating out of him was enough to have Magnus trembling.

He looked at him. His husband, who always held him like it was the most important thing his hands would ever do.

His Alexander. 

“I realized I didn’t want emptiness,” Magnus said. “I only wanted you.”

Alec surged forward to kiss him. Their noses bumped before Magnus tilted his head to get the angle right, lips pressed bruisingly together, Alec’s hands tangling in Magnus’s sudsy hair. Magnus’s own hands came up to cradle his face, and he pulled Alec closer, teasing open his lips with his tongue. Tasting him, the tea and desperation lingering in his mouth. Drowning in him.

“You have me,” Alec gasped into his mouth. _“Always._ Never, _ever_ doubt that.”

He was so _real,_ solid and vibrant between Magnus’s palms. Magnus slid his hands down Alec’s body, feeling the curve of his shoulders, the flat planes of his chest, the bumps of his abs, softened a little with his softer married lifestyle.

Alec never stopped kissing him for a second. His hands went to Magnus’s hips and he pulled him forward into his lap. Magnus twined his arms around Alec’s neck to steady himself as he settled on Alec’s thighs. He felt surrounded by warmth, the darkness draping over him like a blanket, Alec’s arms coming around his back to hold him close, heat radiating from his body.

His heart swelled dangerously. Oh, he had missed letting these feelings consume him.

Everything was elevated in the darkness. The searing heat of Alec’s mouth. The water trickling down Alec’s skin as Magnus broke the kiss to mouth under his jaw. The drag of Alec’s four-days-old stubble against his lips. _Real_ , Magnus thought, _real. You’re real and you’re_ mine.

He kissed him, feeling restored by the press of Alec’s lips under his own, reached up to dig his hands into Alec’s hair and pull him closer. He was feeling more solid by the second, gravity returning to his body, brought back down to earth by Alec’s touch.

He almost felt strong enough to—

 _“Ah!”_ He couldn’t stop the pained gasp that escaped him as lightning arced through his brain, flashed behind his eyes. His hands spasmed in Alec’s hair, and Alec reached up to take them in his own.

“Magnus?”

Magnus squeezed his eyes shut tight. “It’s okay. Just a headache. Just give me a second.”

“A headache? Since when? Let me see your eyes.”

Magnus shook his head. “Too bright.”

“The lights are off.”

Magnus shook his head again. “Hurts.”

“Okay. Okay,” Alec breathed out shakily. He didn’t seem to know what to do.

Magnus waited, gritting his teeth against the pain. Eventually, it shivered away down his spine and dissipated. Slowly, he opened his eyes to look at Alec.

Alec’s brow was pinched in distress, his jaw clenched.

“Cat said there would be aftershocks,” Magnus reminded him.

Alec nodded, and ran his thumb under Magnus’s eye like he was wiping away an invisible tear. “Let’s go to bed, yeah?”

“Yes,” Magnus agreed.

Alec started to stand up, then stopped, his mouth tipping into a smile.

“What?”

“There’s still conditioner in your hair.”

“Well,” Magnus said, tilting his head back to gaze up at him with a smirk. “It’s not my fault you got distracted.”

 _“I_ got distracted?” Alec started rinsing out his hair, blocking Magnus’s eyes from the draining suds with his hand.

“We both know how you get,” Magnus teased.

“I see how it is.”

When he’d finished rinsing Magnus’s hair, Alec stepped out of the tub, quickly toweling off before offering Magnus his hand.

Magnus took it and started to pull himself up.

He didn’t get very far. The sudden headache had drained what remained of his strength, and as he tried to stand, his legs were shaking too hard for him to get them underneath himself.

“Magnus, hey.” Alec tugged on his hand. “It’s okay. I got you.”

He pulled the plug to let the water drain, and then he was toweling Magnus off before lifting him bodily out of the tub, which could not have been easy. Magnus didn’t bother protesting, knowing it was futile when he truly couldn’t stand on his own. He just clutched onto Alec’s shoulder as he carried him out of the bathroom and deposited him on the bed.

Alec rummaged in a drawer and placed a pair of boxers and one of his own t-shirts on the bed beside Magnus. As Magnus was tugging them on, watching Alec pull on his own clothes, he felt a ping at his wards. A second later, there was a knock on the door.

Alec tensed, looking out towards the living room. Magnus focused on the wards, feeling out the presence at his door. “It’s just Raphael,” he assured Alec. He started to get up. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“No, you stay there. I’ll bring him to you.” Alec disappeared into the living room, and Magnus made himself comfortable on top of the covers.

A moment later, Alec returned with Raphael trailing behind him. As Raphael came to stand by Magnus, Alec slipped out again, giving them room to talk.

Raphael’s hair was wet from the rain, and he was scowling. He looked Magnus over. “You look like hell,” he said.

Magnus tilted his head, strangely affected at seeing him. “Oh, didn’t you hear?” he said lightly. “‘Burnt to a crisp’ is the new black. It’s not _quite_ to my taste but one must follow the whims of fashion, I suppose.”

Raphael shifted on his feet. “Yeah,” he said harshly, “Cat filled me in on your reckless stupidity.”

“Reckless?” Magnus tugged at his ear, smiling a little. “I thought I was being rather brave.”

And then Raphael was hugging him, and this was unexpected, from him. Magnus froze for a second, and then hugged him back.

“You asshole,” Raphael said when he released Magnus. “I’d tell you to stop sacrificing yourself for people who don’t deserve it, but you won’t listen anyway.”

“Probably not,” Magnus agreed.

“Of course not. That would only be the _reasonable_ thing to do.” Raphael shifted again, uncomfortable with his own display of emotion. “But I can’t stay to change your mind. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead.”

“Thank you for coming,” Magnus said softly, and watched as the tenderness that he knew was there flickered in Raphael’s eyes. Then he was gone.

Magnus heard the door to the loft click shut, and then Alec came back into the bedroom. “Is he okay?” he asked.

“Yes, just came to check on me. Why, did he say something to you?”

Alec chuckled. “Just that if I didn’t take good enough care of you, I’d be hearing from him.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about that, darling.”

Alec considered him, then sat down next to him on the bed. He reached out to brush Magnus’s damp hair out of his eyes. “Let’s go to sleep, hmm?”

Magnus nodded and slid under the covers. Alec climbed in next to him.

“I’m really proud of you, you know,” he said once he was lying on his side, looking at Magnus.

Magnus blinked. “For what?”

Alec scoffed. “ _‘For what.’_ For taking down Belial the way you did. I mean, you scared the _shit_ out of me. But the way you stood up to him? The way you stood up _for_ Lorenzo—though Lord knows he doesn’t deserve it—I’ve never seen anything like it. It wasn’t even your fight, and you risked your life anyway.”

“If it threatens the New York Downworld, it’s my fight,” Magnus said, though his cheeks were warming at Alec’s praise.

Alec hummed, then sighed. “I’m sorry for trying to keep you out of it. When Lorenzo called asking for your help, I just thought, you’ve been through too much recently to have to deal with it. This was also when we still thought it was just a small rift. But I should have told you.”

Magnus didn’t have the energy to be angry about that, not anymore. “It’s okay—”

“No, it’s not. We had a whole talk about not making decisions for each other and everything. If I thought it was bad for you to be involved, I should have just expressed that _to_ you.”

“I would have just gone anyway,” Magnus said.

“Magnus, I’m trying to apologize. You don’t have to keep justifying my actions.”

Magnus’s lips quirked up into a smile. “Well, then. You’re forgiven. Although, I _can_ understand how it might have been hard to try to tell me not to do something when I was standing there, _on fire._ ”

Finally, Alec laughed. “Fair enough.”

He looked Magnus over, seeming like he had a lot more he wanted to say. But he elected not to voice it, instead reaching out to tug Magnus towards him.

“Sleep?” he said.

Magnus nodded, tucking himself against Alec’s chest. Exhaustion was crashing over him in waves, he could already feel himself sinking into Alec’s body, slipping under. “Love you,” he murmured against his neck.

Alec carded a hand through his hair. “Love you, too.”

_He was falling._

_No, sliding, the floor tilting under him, sending him tumbling down into a bright void. It was_ so _bright, he couldn’t see a thing, could only squeeze his eyes shut and pray for his pounding head._

_He scrabbled for purchase on the slippery floor, fingertips bleeding, blood smearing under him. A voice laughed._

_“You had a close relationship with your own father…”_

_Suddenly the floor righted itself, and he stumbled, fell, pushed himself to his feet again. Called his magic. It wouldn’t come._

_His heart rattled wildly in his chest. He needed to get out, he needed to— to escape—_

_A figure emerged from the brightness, its edges indistinct._

_“You’ll come join me eventually,” Belial said, “when the pain becomes too great. I’ll see you in the void.”_

_His shimmering form shifted and became Ragnor._

_“I’ll take him from you eventually,” Ragnor said, eyes dark and unlike him, voice harsh. “You think I can’t take him from you with a snap of my fingers?”_

_He took a slick, calculated step forward, and then he was Asmodeus, disdainful golden eyes looking down on him with cruel certainty. “This isn’t over yet, Magnus. It will never be over…”_

_Magnus screamed. “No! Leave him alone! You leave him a—”_

_A hand grabbed his shoulder._

Magnus lurched away, flailing wildly in the sheets until he tumbled off the bed. He stumbled to his feet, backing away until he was pressed to the wall.

Everything about the bedroom was foreign to him: tilting walls, warping furniture, Alec, sitting up in bed and watching him with alarm.

 _Illusion,_ Magnus thought, _illusion, illusion—_

“He can’t take you!” Magnus heard himself bark in Alec’s direction. His voice cracked. “He can’t take you away from me!”

“Shhh,” Alec said, slowly moving towards him, “No one’s going to take me away from you, I promise. It’s okay.”

Magic was swirling around Magnus’s hands. He fought to calm it. It wouldn’t calm. “He will. He _will_. He’ll take you,” he insisted, shivering.

“Who will?” Alec was almost upon him now. 

Magnus wanted to say, _death._ Instead, he voiced his more immediate nightmare vision. “My father.”

“No,” Alec soothed, taking Magnus’s trembling hands in his own. “No, you banished him to limbo, remember? He can’t get anyone now. Besides, I have a lot of weapons, and I don’t plan on going.”

Magnus sniffled, trying to believe him. The ground still felt unsteady under him. Was this real, or another illusion for him to be tormented with?

Alec tugged at his hands. “Come back to bed? I’ll protect your dreams, I promise.”

Magnus choked out a quiet sob. What he really wanted was to _flee_ —every cell in his body was jittering at him to run and hide, to isolate himself until he could become _Magnus Bane_ again. To tear himself out of Alec’s grasp and disappear.

What he also wanted, with equal fervor, was to collapse into Alec’s arms and cry until he’d drained himself of water. And then maybe some more.

“Please, Magnus,” Alec begged.

 _Oh,_ how Magnus wanted him.

 _“Alexander,”_ he cried.

And then he was falling forward into Alec’s arms, unable to stop his momentum once he had started—reaching, clutching at Alec’s shirt, at his skin, feeling his bones snap back into place at the contact and immediately shake apart again. His heart skittered in his chest, and he reached, he reached, and Alec reached back, tugging him in closer, his hands in his hair, his scent all around him, his hot breath in his ear, murmuring, _I’ve got you, I’ve got you, it’s okay, I’ve got you._

Magnus was sobbing against Alec’s throat, so much feeling cascading into him from everywhere, all of the past month crashing down on him—the fights, the illusions, the injuries real and perceived, the fear, the loss, the certainty of his own death and the desire for it—and for once he didn’t push back, just let himself feel it.

“Alec,” he gasped, “Alec, _Alec_ —” he didn’t know what he was asking for, just that he had to keep him pressed up against him, he couldn’t bear for Alec’s grip to slip off of him.

“Shh,” Alec said, “you’re okay. I got you.”

“I can’t, I—”

“You _can_. It’s _okay,_ Magnus. It’s okay.”

Whatever semblance of control Magnus had been clinging to shattered, and he just clung to Alec tighter. It was a terrifying feeling, spinning out—but Alec’s hands were on him, keeping him from flying away. And he wanted him, _oh_ he wanted him, wanted his tight grip, the press of his lips, the rumble of his voice against his chest, had been craving him for ages, even though he’d been right there. 

“You’re safe, it’s okay,” Alec was saying again, breath tickling Magnus’s hair. “It’s alright, I got you.”

He was. He _was_ safe. Here, in Alec’s arms.

“I want you,” Magnus gasped, pressing bruises into his skin. “Stay with me, I’m sorry, _I want you. I need you._ ”

“You have me,” Alec breathed, voice shaking. “You have me.”

When Magnus came back to himself, they were tangled together on the floor, leaning against the foot of the bed. Alec’s arms were still around him, and he was stroking up and down his back, murmuring something that Magnus couldn’t quite make out into his hair.

The blue light of early dawn was peeking in through the curtains, and Magnus’s whole body hurt from crying—his eyes felt raw, his bones were sore from clutching at Alec’s shirt, a headache was pounding at his temples. But he also felt _lighter_.

Alec must have felt him move, for his hands stilled against Magnus’s back. “Magnus? You with me?”

Magnus took a deep breath. In, out. Feeling the weight of Alec’s arms, the almost uncomfortable press of his shin where their legs were tangled, the heat of his skin where Magnus’s face was pressed in the crook of his neck. Real. He was real.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m— yes.”

Alec let out a shaky breath, and Magnus realized that it must have been a lot for him, too—all of _this_.

“How are you feeling now?”

“I’m fi—” Magnus started to say, on reflex. Alec tensed under him. “I don’t know,” he settled on instead.

“Okay. That’s okay. Let’s just stay here for a while, then, yeah?”

Magnus nodded against his throat.

He knew he should get up, start putting himself back together. He should at least insist that they get off the floor. But he couldn’t bring himself to move, to break the tenuous serenity that had fallen over them. It felt too good, precious and safe.

So of course, as he lay there, folded in Alec’s arms, just breathing, that familiar unease started to trickle in, curling in his gut.

“I’ll be okay,” he mumbled, “in just a minute, I promise.”

Alec heaved out a deep sigh. “Magnus… you don’t have to be _okay_. I mean, obviously I _want_ you to be okay, I hate seeing you in pain—but you don’t have to be, like, immediately okay after something bad happens. All I really want is for you to let me be there when you aren’t.”

Magnus’s breath stuttered, and he had to fight to remain still, to keep his face tucked under Alec’s chin and not move to look up at him. He wasn’t sure he could handle the expression he knew was on Alec’s face without breaking down again—or trying to flee.

So instead, he reached out, still trembling, and took Alec’s hand, holding on tight.

Alec squeezed his hand and sighed. “There you are.”

“I’ve been right here.”

But Alec shook his head. “You’ve been so far away. You’ve been… running away from me.”

He had been, hadn’t he? “Sometimes I don’t realize I’m doing it.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Magnus tried to tamp down on the guilt stirring in his chest.

“Listen,” Alec said suddenly, like the words were being physically dragged from his lungs, “I know you don’t like… being vulnerable in front of people.”

In truth, Magnus still felt uncomfortable being vulnerable around Alec, too, sometimes. It was a damn hard habit to shake, this idea that as soon as he let someone in, let them know that he, too, was just soft underneath, they would slip away from him.

“But when you shut me out, it hurts. It makes me feel…” His hands twitched in the fabric of Magnus’s shirt. “It makes me feel like you don’t trust me. Like you don’t trust that I love you enough to stick around when it gets hard. And I’m— I’m not mad at you! I’m not.” He let out a slow breath. “I just needed you to know that.”

Magnus knew that, no matter how good he might be at caring for others, it was still hard for Alec to give voice to his own needs. He must have been in quite a lot of pain to be willing to say something like that. 

How often had Magnus hurt him with a casual denial, a thoughtless dismissal? Only by doing what he thought was better for them both?

The worst part was that, on some level, he must have known that locking Alec out upset him, and he _hadn’t been able to stop himself_. He had been afraid. He was still afraid. _They were married, and he was still afraid._ Magnus wasn’t sure he would ever stop being afraid.

That thought, in itself, was terrifying.

Alec had stilled against him, bracing himself for Magnus’s response. Magnus pulled away, finally, so he could look at him, taking in the nervousness in Alec’s gaze as he waited for Magnus to run again.

_Enough running._

Magnus grit his teeth, and forced himself to say: “I was scared.”

“Scared?”

“Of losing you.”

Alec’s brow furrowed. “If you… let me in?”

“Yes.”

“Are you still scared?”

 _No_ was on the tip of Magnus’s tongue. His heart fluttered.

Alec was watching him with wide, wet eyes. He looked alarmed by whatever he was seeing run across Magnus’s face. Slowly, he reached up and cupped Magnus’s jaw with the lightest touch. Magnus wanted to tremble apart at the gentleness of it. Probably would have, if he hadn’t already been sitting down.

“Yes,” he admitted.

Alec’s face crumpled. _“Oh,_ baby.”

Oh, this must be really serious. Alec rarely used pet names, unlike Magnus, who was constantly throwing new ones at him just to get a rise, or the quick flash of a humoring smile. If Alec was breaking out terms of endearment, that didn’t bode well for either of their emotional states.

Magnus was alarmed to see tears gathering in the corners of Alec’s eyes. “Please don’t be scared,” Alec begged. “There’s nothing you could say that would make you lose me. Nothing. Did you— did you really think I’d just—what? _Leave?_ Don’t you know me better than that?”

Magnus laid an appeasing hand on his chest. “Of course I do, darling. It’s just—old habits are hard to break, I suppose.”

Horror flashed across Alec’s face as something occurred to him. “Wait, is this because of—”

“No.” Magnus knew what he had been going to ask. _Is this because of the Asmodeus deal._ And it wasn’t, not at its core. “Not entirely. It goes much deeper than that.”

Alec considered him, and spoke slowly, like he was gathering his thoughts as he went. “I know that you have this… deep well of pain inside you.”

Magnus blinked. “What?”

“I can see it. I mean, you’re pretty good at hiding it. But still.”

Magnus shifted under the intensity of his gaze. “Alexander…”

Alec rested a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I would never try to make you talk about anything that you truly don’t want to discuss. But please don’t hold things back because you think it’s too much for me. And _please_ don’t hide when you’re hurting.”

“That’s not what you deserve from your marriage,” Magnus said, looking down at his hands, “all of that pain.”

“It’s _our_ marriage.” There was an edge to Alec’s voice that Magnus couldn’t quite read. “And is that really how you think I feel about us?”

“You would,” Magnus said, “eventually. Eventually, you would realize you could live an easier life without me.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to,” Alec said, voice harsh. “Even the day we fought Lilith in literal Hell was better than any day I’ve spent without you, and that day fucking _sucked._ I’d much rather live a more difficult life _with_ you.”

Magnus’s breath caught, and he clenched a hand in the fabric of Alec’s t-shirt, almost involuntarily.

“We met at the beginning of a war,” Alec continued, quieter now. “We got engaged when the world was ending. Pain was always going to be a part of it. It doesn’t scare me. What scares me is not having you there with me to face it. You— you make my life immeasurably brighter just being here. There is no world in which a life without you is easier.” 

“Alec—”

“Let me finish.” Alec wrapped his hand around Magnus’s, which was still pressed to his shirt, and squeezed. “I married _you_ , okay? I want a life with _you_ , whatever hardships come with it. And whatever they are, they’re never going to be too much for me to handle. I’m— _by the Angel,_ I’m so sorry I once made you think there was a universe where that could be the case.”

Magnus wasn’t entirely sure his heart was still beating. Alec looked down at him, and _smiled_ , something tearful and wavering.

 _“I_ _love you_ , Magnus. I love _you_.” His voice was gentle and fierce at once. “I’ll keep saying it as long as it takes for you to really believe it.”

Magnus stared at him, heart stuttering back to life in a painful beat. Didn’t he understand? Didn’t he _get it?_

“I love you,” Magnus replied, pained, “and I believe it.”

Alec pressed a kiss into his hair. “Good. So can you just—” He stopped himself, took a deep breath. “I need you to stop trying to protect _me_ for a minute. And stop trying to protect yourself _from_ me, because I’m not going anywhere. Just _stop_ —and let me help _you_.” 

Magnus sat silently in his arms, overwhelmed. Alec sounded so sincere, but these were still hard sentiments to accept after having internalized the opposite for so long. 

“I know you don’t like being taken care of,” Alec continued, a hint of humor in his voice, “but you’re stuck with me, now, and I intend to take care of you. So get used to the idea.”

“You will resent me,” Magnus insisted, trembling, “you will—”

“Never. Even if I do nothing but take care of you for the rest of my life. I— I want to. It’s my privilege to take care of you.” His expression turned more serious. “And don’t you dare tell me you don’t deserve it.” 

Magnus felt like he was burning from the inside out, combusting, he couldn’t speak, he— he didn’t _want_ this—

No. That wasn’t right. He _did_ want this, desperately, he didn’t know what to do about how much he wanted this.

“Alexander,” Magnus tried, throat closing up. He didn’t know what to _say._

Because he had forgotten, hadn’t he? That Alec was _different_. Past lovers might have expected perfection, might have resented his weaknesses, but with Alec—Magnus’s collapse wasn’t a burden.

His refusal to let himself fall apart was what hurt Alec the most.

And—most importantly—Alec wanted to catch him.

“I want that, too,” Magnus managed to say. “Even if I’m not very good at showing it.” He was alarmed to find tears slipping down his cheeks again. _Goddammit._

“Whoa, hey.” Alec cupped his cheek with a broad palm, swiping away Magnus’s tears with his thumb. “Sorry, this is a lot all at once. Let’s take a break. You should eat something.”

“Shouldn’t we sleep more?” He didn’t know exactly when his nightmare had woken them, but they couldn’t have gotten enough sleep. Especially not Alec, who was more sleep-deprived than Magnus even wanted to think about.

“Do you think you’ll be able to get back to sleep?” Alec asked.

Magnus thought about it, and shook his head. He felt wrung out, exhausted, but the peace of mind he’d need for sleep was far away.

“Yeah, me neither. Let’s eat something.” Alec nudged Magnus to get up, then followed him, stretching with a grimace. “And you need to drink at least three glasses of water. Or tea, whatever.”

“Yes, dear,” Magnus said flatly, smirking a little when Alec shot him a _don’t argue with me_ look. They were far from on even footing, but still, the small moment of teasing felt comfortable, warm and good. He had missed that.

He had missed this: Alec’s hand in his, not yanking him back from danger, but leading him forward into the new day. Alec’s expression, not crumpling in pain but tilting up into a smile. His own heart, beating in cautious optimism that he would be okay.

That they would be okay.

“‘What if you can’t,’” Alec said quietly later that morning.

Magnus looked up at him, confused. “What was that, darling?”

It was an unusually warm morning for March, so they were sitting on opposite ends of the balcony sofa, facing each other, cradling mugs of coffee. (Magnus had instinctively reached for vodka, but Alec had swatted his hand away.) Alec was considering him now, a sad tilt to his expression.

“The other day,” he explained. “I asked you to talk to me, and you said, ‘What if I can’t.’”

Magnus tightened his grip on the warmth of his mug, tucking his legs in closer. “I didn’t mean—”

“If you did, you can admit it,” Alec interrupted. “It’s okay.” The tone of his voice didn’t exactly suggest that it was, though.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Magnus insisted. “It’s just hard for me.”

“Because you’re afraid I’ll walk out if you overburden me.”

“Historically, that has been the case in my life, yes.” He took a fortifying sip of his coffee, trying to decide if he should leave it there. But Alec’s gaze was searching his, so earnest, and he deserved honesty, didn’t he? For once? “But also… people have often tended to turn my confidences against me.” _Camille. Asmodeus. Countless others whose memories Magnus didn’t care to resurface._

He watched Alec’s face fall as he remembered the time _he’d_ done that, too, used Magnus’s deepest confessions to break his heart. But Magnus didn’t push it. They’d already talked about that extensively after it happened, and the last thing he wanted was to dredge it up again.

“Hiding isn’t always an active choice for me,” Magnus continued. “It’s instinctual. And I suppose I was unsure… how much of that you would take. What would happen to us if I couldn’t give you what you want.”

Alec sat up straighter, abandoning his mug on the floor by the sofa. “And what do you _think_ I want?” he asked, an edge to his voice.

Magnus laughed bitterly. “Oh, I don’t know. A husband who doesn’t foil your every attempt to help? Who actually talks to you? I’m trying, Alec, but I can’t help but feel that I’m not doing enough.”

“You’re always enough for me,” Alec said, quiet but firm. “All I want is whatever you’re willing to give.”

“But you shouldn’t, don’t you get it?” Magnus demanded. “You’re allowed to want more, to ask for more.”

“Magnus—”

“If our relationship isn’t working for you, you’re allowed to ask for things to change. I don’t want—”

_“Magnus—”_

“I don’t want you to feel like you can’t ask for what you need from me. From us. You—”

 _“Magnus!”_ Alec said, loud enough that Magnus’s mouth finally snapped shut. “Do you hear yourself?”

Magnus frowned. “What?”

“‘You’re allowed to ask for what you need’?” Alec quoted, lips twitching. “You want to, like, try that sometime?”

Magnus just stared at him, shaken. Because—what _did_ he need? He hadn’t thought about it, not for a while, had been limiting himself to mere wants that he could live without—because accepting that you had needs meant accepting the possibility of being denied them. And he had been denied many times before.

A hint of concern was bleeding into Alec’s gaze as Magnus remained silent. But he didn’t say anything, just waited.

Magnus had always expected to have to be the patient one in their relationship, had been prepared to be steady, to wait for Alec as long as it took.

He had never thought that _he_ would be the one dragging them backwards. But here they were.

_I will catch you when you fall._

He had fallen a little behind, but it was okay. Alec was waiting for him to catch up.

“Alexander,” Magnus started, his heart rate picking up, because he knew what he had to say, to admit, if he was to even try to ask for what he needed. “I’ve been—” saying it felt like coughing up glass he had swallowed: excruciating and necessary “—hurting. I _am_ hurting.”

If Alec was surprised by this turn in the conversation, he didn’t show it. If anything, he just looked relieved. “I know.”

“And I hate it,” Magnus admitted. “Feeling out of control.”

“You mean because of Belial?”

“And… all of it. I need to be in control of my own mind, my own body. This past month has just seemed determined to strip that from me.” He banished his mug to the floor so he could run his hands through his hair, pulling on the strands. “I don’t like feeling _weak._ ”

“You’re not _weak._ You’re _hurting_. Magnus, you are… so _incredibly_ strong.” Alec ran a hand through his own hair, thinking. “Listen… you remember that— that love ritual?”

Magnus must have flinched, for Alec wrapped a soothing hand around his ankle.

“I’ve been sort of… getting the memories back. Slowly.” He found Magnus’s line of sight, his gaze intense. “And what I remember most is _you_.”

“Me losing my shit,” Magnus said, laughing weakly, trying to avoid his gaze.

Alec shifted closer so he could take a hold of Magnus’s chin and tilt his face back up. “You standing back up after you thought I was dead, ready to kill a god.”

Magnus blinked at him, startled.

“You know what else I remember?” Alec continued. “You taking on Belial by yourself. You closing an interdimensional portal by yourself. You fixing a time loop by yourself. You ripping open reality to banish Belial to Hell, by yourself.” His thumb ran back and forth across Magnus’s jaw. “So, you see, you’re unbelievably strong. But you can’t be strong all the time. And you don’t have to be by yourself, either.”

Magnus wrapped a hand around his wrist, feeling his steady pulse, a contrast to his own fluttering, awed heart. “Alexander.”

Alec pressed a quick kiss to his lips. When he pulled away, his gaze drifted over Magnus’s shoulder, and he said softly, “You know… we never _really_ talked about what happened that day.”

They hadn’t. “I’m not leaving you,” Magnus said, adamant. “That’s never happening. I’m sorry I said that.” 

“I know. But you were pulling away, and I guess I was just afraid… that I wasn’t enough for you.”

Magnus breathed out slowly to still his racing heart. _“Alexander.”_

 _He still didn’t_ get it. _Magnus had to make him get it._

Alec ducked his head. “I know, it’s stupid.”

 _“No.”_ Magnus ran a hand down his chest, over and over, like he could soothe away these hurts with his palm. “No, darling, I just— haven’t been able to make you understand.”

He took a deep breath and tried to get his thoughts in order. “If I can’t talk to you, if I can’t let you in, it’s not because you’re not enough. It’s because you’re— _everything._ ”

Alec frowned at him, confused.

“I can’t afford to lose everything,” Magnus explained.

 _“Oh, Magnus,_ ” Alec said, distraught. “What can I do? How can I get you to believe that I’m— that I’m _here?_ That I’ll always be here, no matter what?”

“You already do it,” Magnus said. “Every day I wake up next to you and that’s… _everything_ to me.”

“You deserve more than just basic loyalty, you deserve” —Alec’s jaw clenched as he tried to find the right words. When he found them, he said them like they still didn’t capture the enormity of what he felt— “all the love in the world.”

Magnus said, “I have it.”

Magnus didn’t need grand acts of chivalry. He didn’t need extravagant date nights around the world, however much he enjoyed them. He certainly didn’t need Alec sacrificing his life for him. All he needed, all he’d ever needed but denied himself, was just for his husband to see him. To see him and still hold him.

“Ask me,” Alec said, his body folded in tense lines. He was practically vibrating with how much he clearly wanted to drag Magnus into his arms, but he held himself back, waiting for Magnus to come to him. “Ask me for what you need.” 

Magnus looked at him. The rising sun illuminated Alec’s face in planes of gold, capturing the amber in his eyes, casting a halo behind the curls of his hair. He looked radiant, almost glowing from within, sunlight captured in human form, and for once, Magnus wasn’t afraid of the brightness.

“Hold me?”

Alec reached for him, quick and desperate, and Magnus moved towards him, let himself be tugged in to Alec’s chest. He tucked himself in against him as Alec lay back on the sofa with a sigh, and magicked a blanket over them both to keep out the slight chill of the air.

Alec’s body was solid under him, warmed by the sun, his heart beat under Magnus’s ear, and, as always, Magnus felt more alive when he was with him. _Wanted_ to be more alive.

They stayed there for long moments, basking in the early spring sun, Alec’s arms tight around Magnus’s back and gradually loosening as he realized that this time, Magnus would stay.

“Hey,” Alec said eventually, his voice rumbling under Magnus’s ear. “When you were… out… I spoke a lot with Cat—she was around, you know—and she told me a bit about that time— with that house on Long Island, when we got trapped?” He started speaking faster, like he thought if he didn’t get these words out quick enough, he’d never get the chance again. “We compared notes on the whole thing. And she mentioned that you ran into an old friend there, one who you’d lost. Ragnor, right?”

Magnus lifted his head to look at him. Alec met his gaze, cautious and hopeful.

“You never really told me much about him…”

It was an opening. An invitation. And one that, in the newness of the morning light, in the comfort of Alec’s arms, this safe, sacred place, Magnus finally felt able to accept.

“Well, then. Let me tell you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“Wait a little. Do not leave my sight. Am I someone to flee from? The last word destiny lets me say to you is this.”_
> 
> Opening and ending quotes from The Aeneid, Book VI, trans. Robert Fitzgerald  
> Here’s the full passage:
> 
> _Dido, so forlorn,  
>  The story then that came to me was true,  
> That you were out of life, had met your end  
> By your own hand. Was I, was I the cause?  
> I swear by heaven’s stars, by the high gods,  
> By any certainty below the earth,  
> I left your land against my will, my queen,  
> The gods’ commands drove me to do their will,  
> As now they drive me through this world of shades,  
> These mouldy waste lands and these depths of night.  
> And I could not believe that I would hurt you  
> So terribly by going. Wait a little.  
> Do not leave my sight.  
> Am I someone to flee from? The last word  
> Destiny lets me say to you is this._
> 
> thank you so much for reading and supporting this fic! your comments and kudos mean the world to me. this is the longest thing i've written, and the process of editing it murdered me 😅 so i hope you liked the ending, and that this chapter that's like 9k of pure comfort made up for all of the angst
> 
> as always, if you want to talk to me, send fic prompts, or what have you, you can find me on [tumblr](https://cuubism.tumblr.com) :)


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